Tina Turner gets ‘emotional’ thinking of former husband Ike: ‘In the beginning, he was very good to me’

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Tina Turner has revealed that she gets “emotional” when thinking of her time with late husband Ike, who notoriously abused her throughout their relationship, and that she only married him in the first place in order to prevent further abuse. Speaking to US television personality Gayle King in a rare sit-down interview for CBS News, Turner explained that her current marriage to the German music executive Erwin Bach is “the first time that I got married, as far as I was concerned”. And so then, when we drove to marry, that wasn’t my idea of my wedding.” Turner did, however, confess that she gets “emotional” when thinking of Ike, who died in 2007, as their relationship was not entirely driven by abuse. Tina would eventually flee the marriage in 1976, with a court allowing her to maintain the “Tina Turner” stage name that Ike had given her years prior and trademarked for himself.