Does Tina Turner suffer from PTSD? Rock n' Roll legend feels emotionally tortured whenever ex Ike is named
Tina Turner is making waves in the build-up to her new bombshell documentary 'Tina', out March 27 on HBO. The uber-talented entertainer who left the 'Nutbush City Limits' behind to be 'The Best' is not dying. However, it's true that she's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after enduring decades of abuse and tragedy — and is tired of dredging up past traumas for her beloved audience.
“I had an abusive life,” 81-year-old Turner says in the forthcoming film from Oscar-winning directors Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin. “There’s no other way to tell the story. It’s a reality. A truth.”
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The HBO documentary goes into detail about the music icon's childhood neglect and a journey marred with domestic violence, sexual abuse, and suicide attempts, especially during her tumultuous 16-year marriage to late ex-husband Ike Turner.
The 'Proud Mary' hitmaker may have healed on the outside since she left Ike after one final bloody altercation in 1976. However, she still feels the emotional toll from Ike's torture whenever his name is mentioned, according to the New York Post.
“Every time she’s asked to re-tell her story, as beneficial as it may be for other people to hear and be empowered by, it can be extremely painful and re-traumatizing for her,” Martin, 41, told the paper.
“Her motivation for coming forward about the truth of her time with Ike was about trying to free herself from him,” Lindsay added to The Post. “But the irony is that it just connected her to him in a way that she could never escape.”
Turner — born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939 — had vowed to never leave Ike despite enduring what she described as incessant brutality. Her promise stemmed from the pain she felt after being abandoned as a child on a cotton field in Nutbush, Tennessee, by unloving parents. And she has been unable to flee the shadow of Ike despite her acclaimed career as a solo artist and enduring love with German music producer Erwin Bach, her husband.
“This [film] is her way of saying to the world once and for all, ‘These are the pieces [of my story] that I’m leaving. Now let me go,’ ” Lindsay told The Post.
Turner survived a stroke in 2013, intestinal cancer in 2017, and the tragic loss of her 59-year-old son Craig Turner, who shot himself to death in 2018. Furthermore, the physical and sexual cruelty meted out by Ike has left her struggling with a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Despite what she endured, Turner has forgiven Ike since his death by cocaine overdose in 2007 at age 76.
“It hurts to have to remember those times,” Turner, who now lives in Zurich, told producers. “But at a certain stage, forgiveness takes over. Forgiving means not to hold on. You let it go because by not forgiving — you suffer.”