Tina Turner

Who I'd like to meet:

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Question: You had a difficult childhood. What were your parents like?

Answer: I am part Navajo and Cherokee Indian and was born in the tiny backwoods town of Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 where my father worked in the cotton fields. I was not close to my father, I felt he didn’t like me. I didn’t get much love or affection because my parents were always fighting.

Question: What about the film of your life 'I, Tina?' Why did you turn down the offer of playing yourself?

Answer: It's the saddest story ever told: this poor little black girl who became a star but was never loved as a child, who was deserted by her parents and beaten up by her husband. It's sob-story stuff. But I wouldn't want to be in my movie. Who could I play? Me? Why? I know the role, I lived the role and that was upsetting enough, at times. I suffered every time I had a fight with Ike, I bruised and I bled and I wept. Even if you are just acting those fights again, it would be too much for me and I would be breaking down in tears after every scene. No way, I'm just pleased that I came through it all intact.

Question: Have you forgotten about the bad days of your past now?

Answer: I can never forget them. I'll never forget being hit. Being knocked unconscious. I'll never forget the rows with Ike and the times when I couldn’t go on stage because my eye was messed up so bad. I can never forget the times when I was so low, I was reduced to singing cabaret stuff at businessmen’s conventions in Las Vegas. I would love to forget. I would like to pretend that there weren't days when I would wake up wanting to die because I felt nobody in the whole wide world loved me.

Question: Your mother died in 2000 and you didn't attend the funeral, but Ike did, correct?

Answer: Yes. He and Ma had kept in touch, and he showed up and was very upset that I wasn't there. So he went to the newspapers, and all over Europe the press said: "Tina shuns her mother's funeral".

I wanted to give my mother her moment. Everyone called asking, "Is Tina going to be there?". We said "Don't come just because of Tina" I wasn't in the frame of mind to be stared at. I didn't need it, nor did Ma need it from me. So I felt, let her have that day.

Question: What about your own man, Erwin Bach? Does he get jealous of the men and all the attention and publicity you get?

Answer: Jealous of what? There is no reason for him to be. No, the wonderful thing about Erwin is that he is the first fully adult man that I have ever known. Most men behave like five-year-old boys. Now that is endearing in many ways but it can get tiring. The thing about Erwin is that he is extraordinary in that he's actually grown up. He is the kindest guy I have ever met. He understands that you like to be given flowers, that you like to have doors held open for you and to receive little surprise presents. Erwin knows that most women like to be treated like a lady and so he does. Most men want a woman so that they can possess her.

Question: What does the future hold for you now?

Answer: Happiness, I guess. It must be happiness, because I have known so much pain in my life that I can’t believe that I could be made to suffer again. I know I will be still working when I am 90. I’ll still be singing then. And I mean it.

I am in total control of my life, and I don't put limits on myself.