Society failed Tina Turner, we shouldn't let it happen again
Tina Turner was a legend, in every sense of the word. With a bold, brassy voice, an unmatched stage presence and a lifetime of iconic looks, she truly was a performer’s performer. And when I think about just how much the godmother of rock & roll meant to Black women and girls throughout her life, words fail me. As writer and Essence Magazine editor Brooklyn-Grier whore put it, “Tina Turner's music was funky, sexy and liberating. Made you let your hair down and rock your hips -- but not better than her! That rasp, that conviction, that sway... There will NEVER be another.”
But Tina, whose immeasurable legacy included several Grammys and millions of records sold worldwide, was also radically human. She bore her soul in her music, left it all on the stage every single time she picked up a mic, and gave some of the most achingly raw and honest interviews of any celebrity throughout her decades-long career.
So when Tina died at the age of 83 this week, it wasn’t surprising that fans and celebrities from across multiple generations felt distraught, and absorbed her loss in their own personal and unique ways.
Yet even as the world sings its dirge for one of the greatest talents to ever live, our collective mourning made me think about how we treated her when she was alive. Did the people in her life — people at the hands of whom she experienced the violence that would come to mark her legacy — respect and appreciate her the way she deserved? And did we, her ever-adoring audience, honour the fullness of those experiences the way we should have? The answer is absolutely not.
The men in her life were simply the worst, the most famous being her ex-husband and former singing partner, Ike Turner. Through their nearly 20-year-long relationship, Tina was subjected to emotional, physical and psychological batterings from Ike, who was several years her senior, and who would later proudly admit to assaulting her.
And what about her fans? How did we, the world for whom she performed and laid her heart out for decades, treat her when we found out what she had been going through? Sadly, audiences acted like an extension of her abusers, meeting every bit of news about her relationship with scorn, or flat out mockery.
After her marriage to Ike ended, the media at the time printed pages upon pages of salacious gossip about the details of her abuse. Interviewers also forced her to talk about the relationship on the air even when she was clearly traumatized, and gave Ike multiple platforms to “express his side of the story.”
And instead of acting as a cautionary tale about the realities of intimate partner violence, a predatory music industry and the plight of the Black women who shaped the landscape of that industry, Ike and Tina Turner became the poster couple for the ways that pop culture romanticizes abusive dynamics. Artists like Biggie, Kanye West, Quavo, Jay Z and Alicia Keys have all mentioned the couple in their lyrics, referencing Ike’s behaviour like it was some feat of physical fitness any man should aspire to (Jigga’s eat the cake Anna Mae line is eternally unforgivable for me).
It’s the kind of treatment reserved specially for Black women who experience violence at the hands of the very men who are supposed to protect them. From Robin Givens to Rihanna to Megan Thee Stallion, the public has never taken the plight of Black women victims seriously, even when their victimization happens right in the public eye.
Powerful Black women aren’t seen as victims, but as active participants in their own abuse, and that thinking follows them through the experience and even after the fact. But if this is what the women themselves experience, what becomes of the men who are the violent instigators of the endless train of misogynoir? The men who abused them before the world stepped in and took over? They never seem to face any immediate (or even long term) consequences and in the court of public opinion, many of these men are heroes. It took decades of abusing scores of young girls and women, some of those abuses occurring on tape, before R. Kelly was finally arrested. Chris Brown continues to make music, tour and collaborate with the biggest artists in the world even when stories of his alleged violent behavior toward women continue to come out.
As for Ike turner, he too made out okay in the end. Aside from several arrests on drug charges years after his split from Tina, he was eventually inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, toured internationally with his band, and even won a Grammy for his final album Risin’ With the Blues.
For her part, Tina fought a long, tough road to healing and eventually built the incredible solo career that she’s so celebrated for today. She also met someone new, and forged a connection that filled her last few decades on earth with the kind of love that she was worthy of.
Of her relationship with record label executive Erwin Bach who she was with for nearly 40 years, she said “Falling in love with my husband, Erwin, was another exercise in leaving my comfort zone, of being open to the unexpected gifts that life has to offer.”
Even if we can’t turn back the clock on how the world treated Tina Turner, her experience should serve as a cautionary tale for other Black women who have to endure private abuse and public rehashings of that abuse.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20 and we always talk about how we could (and should) have treated people better when someone dies. But there are Black women alive, right now, who need all the support they can get. And if we really want to make penance then we need to make life easier for them now, while they’re still here.