The 'Private Dancer' singer always believed her mother didn't want her as she observed the difference between how her mom treated her and her sibling Alline.
- May 31, 2023
AceShowbiz - Tina Turner passed away believing her mum didn't want her. Born into poverty in Brownsville, Tennessee, the late "Private Dancer" singer was the youngest daughter of farm boss and Baptist deacon Floyd Richard Bullock and his factory worker wife Zelma Priscilla (nee Currie), who went on to have Evelyn Juanita Currie and Ruby Alline Bullock, who was also a songwriter before her death in 2010 aged 73.
In her autobiography "I, Tina", the star, whose death aged 83 from natural causes at her Swiss estate was announced on May 24, said that she "wasn't wanted," with her mother only staying with her father on discovering she was pregnant for the third time.
She explained in the book, "She was a very young woman who didn't want another kid." She added she was "a little bit afraid" of her dad.
Tina also told Rolling Stone magazine her mother hadn't loved her, saying, "I knew the difference because I used to watch her with my sister (Ruby) Alline. How she was with her and how she was with me. She loved Alline."
Tina, who had two sons and adopted two of her first husband Ike's children, went on to worry her son Ronnie would follow in his abusive dad Ike Turner's footsteps. Ronnie Turner's wife Afida Turner said the singer was so haunted by Ike's brutalities she warned her Ron "is going to be like his father." She told the Daily Mail, "(Tina) sometimes told me, 'You don't want to stay with him. He is going to be like his father.' "
Ike died of a drug overdose in 2007 aged 76 after years of tormenting Tina physically, verbally and mentally. His abuse was so severe it led to Tina trying to take her life in 1986 by swallowing 50 sleeping pills.
French-born singer Afida added at the beginning of her relationship with Ronnie he did show signs of troubling behaviour. She said, "At first, he was kind of like his father, but after that, he was going very well. He made a very big effort to keep me. In the beginning, it was very hard because I was not willing to stay with him."
