Tina Turner met Erwin Bach, a music producer, in 1986, a decade after her divorce from Ike Turner. She and Bach, who were 16 years apart in age, dated for 27 years before marrying in 2013. Turner stated in 2020 that her second spouse taught her how “to love without giving up who I am.”
Turner was 46 and Bach was 30, and they met 37 years ago.
According to Bach in the 2021 HBO documentary “Tina,” he and the “Proud Mary” singer met when the music producer was charged with meeting Turner at Dusseldorf airport in 1986.
“Her manager, Roger, had asked me to pick up Tina,” Bach explained. “I had a good time on the bike. I had fun driving the artist, who is actually a superstar for us, where ordinarily you’d be frightened, but I wasn’t either. I was only doing my job.”
Turner, who was 16 years Bach’s senior, also discussed their first meeting with Oprah Winfrey on “Oprah’s Next Chapter” in 2013.
“He was another kind of handsome — great eyes,” she described him. “So I got in the car with Erwin, and my heart was already pounding. ‘Oh, my God,’ I thought as my hands became moist. This is true love at first sight.”
They were pals at first, then started dating after Bach visited Los Angeles.
Bach, who was born in Germany, paid Turner and her manager, Roger Davis, a visit to Los Angeles later that year and reconnected with Turner over dinner.
John Briley, the music manager, was also present for the meal. He told BBC News that he questioned the diva why she hadn’t brought a date, to which she replied, “John, I’m Tina Turner.” “No one ever asks me out.”
Briley claimed that Bach then took advantage of the situation, saying to Turner, “Well, I’ll ask you out.”
Rather than wait, Turner and Bach went to a club after they finished dining, according to Briley.
Turner surprised Bach the next day with a brand new black Mercedes G-Wagon, he claimed.
Bach proposed to Turner twice before she accepted.
Bach attempted to propose to Turner after only four years of courtship, when she was 50.
In an interview with Winfrey, he stated that at that age, a woman should have some form of “commitment” from her boyfriend.
“Even though he asked, I didn’t believe it was true.” “I didn’t believe him on his first two proposals,” Turner said. “But I didn’t want to say no because I wanted to continue the relationship.”
Turner’s longest relationship before meeting Bach was with her musical colleague, Ike Turner, whom she subsequently claimed was physically abusive to her throughout their marriage, which lasted from 1962 to 1976.
In the presence of family and friends, Turner and Bach wed in 2013 at their Swiss château.
Almost 30 years after their initial meeting, the pair married in a civil ceremony at the Château Algonquin, their property in Küsnacht, Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Zurich.
The wedding drew 120 people, including celebrities like Winfrey, Bryan Adams, Sade, and David Bowie.
Turner went down the aisle to Adams’ performance of “All for Love,” according to Entertainment Tonight.
Turner married the same year she legally renounced her US citizenship and declared her transfer to Switzerland permanent, stating that she had no plans to “reside in the United States in the future,” according to a US Embassy report.
When Turner’s condition deteriorated four years later, Bach gave one of his kidneys to her.
The Grammy Award-winning singer claimed in her 2018 memoir, “My Love Story,” that she began to encounter severe health difficulties not long after their wedding.
“I’ve been on such a wild roller-coaster in the four years since my wedding that even I have difficulty keeping my medical catastrophes straight,” she said, adding that three months later she had a stroke.
Turner’s history of high blood pressure, which she just stated she was diagnosed with in 1978, also left her with significant renal difficulties.
Bach stunned his wife by offering to donate one of his kidneys in 2016.
“He said he didn’t want another woman or another life,” she said in her autobiography. “Then he surprised me. He claimed he wanted to donate one of his kidneys to me.”
Turner talked up the aftermath of the transplant in a blog post for Show Your Kidneys Love in March of the following year.
Her body, she claimed, fought to reject the replacement kidney and “required more hospital admissions.” Tuner stated at the time of writing that the “problems are still not quite resolved.”
Turner stated in 2020 that Bach had shown her that “true love doesn’t require the dimming of my light so that he can shine.”
Turner published another book, “Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good,” two years ago, in which she revealed more about her friendship with Bach.
The singer credited her second husband with teaching her how to “love without losing who I am,” and she credited Bach for not being “the least bit intimidated by my career, talents, or fame.”
“He demonstrates that true love does not necessitate the dimming of my light in order for him to shine,” she wrote. “On the contrary, we are the light of each other’s lives, and we want to shine as brightly as we can together.”
“I lived through a hellish marriage that almost destroyed me,” she said, referring to her previous marriage to Ike. I’m aware that my medical journey is far from done. But I’m still here, and we’re closer than we ever thought.
“I can look back and see why my karma was like it was. Good comes from evil. Joy arose through suffering. And I’ve never been happier than I am right now.”