Tina and her sister Alline were left to be raised by their grandmother in Nutbush, Tennessee after their mother left the family.
When the legendary Tina Turner was only an 11-year-old, her parents, who were both sharecroppers, divorced. Her mother relocated to St. Louis after leaving a very long and extremely abusive marriage to Tina's father.
She talked about her mother's difficulties in a documentary on Tina's life, titled Tina. "My mother used to sit in the window of the kitchen when she was making dinner on Sundays. I used to just watch her. She was just so pretty," the singer said in the teaser, per PEOPLE. "One day, she wasn't in that window. She was never in it again."
If you're looking something to watch this weekend, definitely checkout the HBO documentary "Tina."
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 26, 2023
It's so moving and inspiring.
"Look what I have done in this lifetime with this body. I'm a girl from a cotton field. I pulled myself above what was not taught to me." pic.twitter.com/rr6ibd92Lv
"I wanted her to come for me. I waited and she never did. And it's alright — you know why?" she added. "I'm a girl from a cotton field that pulled myself above the destruction and the mistakes. And I'm here for you."
Tina and her sister Alline were left to be raised by their grandmother in Nutbush, Tennessee. Tina relocated to St. Louis after the passing of her grandma when she was sixteen.
Tina Turner was born on November 26, 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee. She marked her 83rd birthday in 2022. Her parents Floyd and Zelma Bullock, who worked as sharecroppers, separated in the early '50s and Tina went to live with her grandmother in Nutbush, Tennessee. https://t.co/6N8Si9hE0j
— Tncorgi (@GavlikMary) May 25, 2023
She became active in the music industry there, where she also met Ike Turner, the man who would become her husband. In 1981, Tina opened up about the abuse she herself endured while she was married to Ike. "I was living a life of death," Tina said. "I didn't exist. I didn't fear him killing me when I left, because I was already dead. When I walked out, I didn't look back."
While the two were on tour and staying at the Statler Hilton in Dallas on July 1, 1976, Tina, like her mother, managed to break away from the abuse inflicted by Ike. Ike had assaulted her "the entire way from the airport to the hotel," Tina told PEOPLE. "By the time we got to the hotel, the left side of my face was swollen like a monster's."
In a trailer for the new biographical documentary “Tina,” singer Tina Turner opens up about her mother Zelma walking out on her at just 11 years old, leaving her in the hands of an abusive father. pic.twitter.com/uYsAHEU9Mc
— The Real (@TheRealDaytime) March 3, 2021
At the hotel, Tina said, "I massaged him and cooed, 'Can I order you any food, dear?' Then he made the mistake of going to sleep."
Tina rushed across the motorway in the pitch-black night to another motel with just 36 cents in her pocket and a Mobil credit card in her wallet, per PEOPLE. “I just took a chance, I said, ‘The way out is through the door’ and while he was on one of his sleeping times, I just left the hotel, went out the kitchen way, and down to the freeway.”
Stop publishing happy family photos of Ike and Tina Turner when she said herself, “I was insanely afraid of that man.”
— Dr Charlotte Proudman (@DrProudman) May 25, 2023
As a black women exposing the horrors of domestic abuse in the 1980s, she stood up for all women. She broke the silence.
We owe her, big time. pic.twitter.com/HpHqaU56nc
References:
https://people.com/music/watch-tina-turner-hbo-documentary-trailer/
https://people.com/music/tina-turner-ike-abusive-relationship-risked-life/
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Sean Gallup
