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Tina Turner once attempted suicide by taking 50 sleeping pills to escape abusive marriage with Ike Turner

'My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he figured out I was going to be his moneymaker,' Tina Turner once said
UPDATED MAY 25, 2023
Tina Turner married Ike Turner in 1962 and they parted ways in 1978 (Eamonn M McCormack and Evening Standard/Getty Images)
Tina Turner married Ike Turner in 1962 and they parted ways in 1978 (Eamonn M McCormack and Evening Standard/Getty Images)

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND: Tina Turner, the queen of rock ’n’ roll, died at the age of 83 after a long illness. Announcing the news of her death, a statement posted on her official Facebook page on Wednesday, May 24, read, “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner. With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow. Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly.”

Born as Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee, Tina's life had been full of tragedy including losing her son Ronnie, who died in an apparent suicide. Apart from this, she went through emotional and physical abuse in her marriage with Ike Turner. "My relationship with Ike was doomed the day he figured out I was going to be his moneymaker. He needed to control me, economically and psychologically, so I could never leave him," Tina told People. They met when Tina was 17 and Ike was 25. They tied the knot in 1962 and later, divorced in 1978.

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'He broke my jaw'

In her memoir, 'Tina Turner: My Love Story,' which was released on October 15, 2018, she spoke about the sex with her husband and expressed it was “a kind of rape," reports The Independent. “He used my nose as a punching bag so many times that I could taste blood running down my throat when I sang,” Tina said, adding that she was pregnant the first time he hit her and further said, “He broke my jaw. And I couldn’t remember what it was like not to have a black eye.”

'Ike was having sex with all of them'

During one night in 1968, Tina "simply couldn’t take any more and swallowed 50 sleeping pills.” When she was asked why she did this "on an ordinary day in 1968," she said, as per Mirror, "For starters, there were three women at the house at the time, and Ike was having sex with all of them. Three of us were named Ann – which meant he only had to remember one name." She wrote in her memoir, “I knew my suicide attempt hadn’t been a classic cry for help. I’d chosen death. Yet I never tried killing myself again, because I came out of the darkness believing that I was meant to survive. I was here for a reason.”

She said that after she attempted suicide, she felt that she was still alive because she "had a purpose, a mission to accomplish in life." "And after surviving years of abuse, I knew I had an innate resilience I could tap into. If I could increase that, I knew I could become unshakably happy and make my dreams come true," Tina recalled.

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