Tina Turner Gets Real About Her Career And Losing Her Son

Music icon Tina Turner recently opened up about her son’s suicide, as well as her relationship with ex-husband Ike Turner.

“I think Craig was lonely, that’s what I think really got him more than anything else,” Tina told Gayle King, in an interview that aired Sunday, about her son. “I have pictures all around of him smiling, and I think I’m sensing that he’s in a good place. I really do.”

Tina, who has suffered a stroke, intestinal cancer, and kidney failure — until her husband Erwin offered to donate one of his kidneys — also opened about her own health scares.

“In Buddhism, you’re taught that you live and you die,” she said. “It’s something that’s accepted. And so then after Erwin [offered his kidney], I said, ‘OK, darling, if you’re willing to give up a kidney, then fine.’”

As for her relationship with Ike, she said, “When Ike asked me to marry him, I knew it was for a reason. But I had to say yes … or it was gonna be a fight. And so then, when we drove to marry, that wasn’t my idea of my wedding.”

“I get emotional because in the beginning, Ike was very good to me,” she added. That is, until he became abusive and “was cruel because he depended on me. He didn’t like that he had had to depend on me. And I didn’t want to start a fight because it was always a black eye, a broken nose, a busted lip, a rib.”

Take a peek of the interview here:

Tina Turner