Erwin Bach, Tina Turner’s last and true love, remained at the star’s bedside until his death.

A glance between them was enough. Tina Turner, the music icon who died on May 24 at the age of 83 after a long illness, met her second husband, Erwin Bach, in 1985 on the tarmac at Dusseldorf Airport in Germany. A flash that the “tiger”, usually so reserved about his personal life, never tired of telling. A survivor of domestic violence, she who ran away from her first husband and musical partner, Ike Turner, almost a decade ago, experienced this new love as a true renewal of life.

Mick Jagger and Tina Turner perform in the video Brown sugar together

“She was 16 years younger than me, 30 at the time, and had the most beautiful face. It was crazy, I thought. “Where does he come from?” He was really beautiful. My heart was beating so fast and my hands were shaking,” he said in a March 2021 documentary interview with music producer Erwin Bach. Tina, released on the HBO channel. “His manager Roger Davies asked me to pick him up (…), he was done. Normally I should have been nervous, but I wasn’t.

Donate yourself

After this car ride, they start seeing each other. first as friends, then as lovers. Although their age difference has fueled all kinds of rumors, including that Ervin is dating a translator Proud Mary For his fame and money, they quickly settle together on the side of Switzerland where the producer works. They got married on July 21, 2013, after 27 years of relationship. Their union is expressed in a civil ceremony on Kusnacht on the shores of Lake Zurich, near their home.

He was 57 years old at that time. He is already 74 years old. After three years of marriage, Tina Turner has had a series of health problems, being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016 and then kidney pain that led to an emergency kidney transplant. “Erwin was informed about the reality of my death. He was deeply moved and declared that he does not want to lose me, that he does not want another woman or another life. That he was ready for anything to keep us together,” he explained in his memoirs published in 2020. Happiness becomes you. A guide to changing your life for the better. In the ultimate proof of love, he offers to donate his kidney to her. The transplant will take place on April 7, 2017.

After spending years under the blows of an abusive husband, Tina Turner finally managed to find happiness with a music producer. Born in Cologne in 1956, Erwin Bach is best known for being the head of the EMI label in Germany. Famous record label that has collaborated on albums by Queen, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd and Radiohead. In her autobiography, Tina Turner assured that her second husband, “the man of her life”, taught her “to love without the need to get lost”. “We allow ourselves the freedom and space to be individuals while being a couple,” she wrote. And continue. “Ervini, who is a force of nature, has never been afraid of my career, my talents or my fame. It shows me that true love doesn’t require my light to be dimmed in order to shine.

My sons, my battle

It must be said that the star knew only that until now. Married in 1962 to Ike Turner, with whom she shared the stage, Tina often confided in her sixteen years of hell with the musician. “Once he started cocaine, things got worse (…) Sex with Ike turned into hostility, it was a kind of rape, especially when it started or ended with beatings,” between broken jaws and repeated hospital stays. Their union gave birth to Ronnie Turner in 1960, who died in December 2022 aged 62.

Tina Turner had another child two years earlier, in 1958, from her relationship with saxophonist Raymond Hill. A boy named Craig committed suicide in 2018 at the age of 60. “The saddest moment for a mother,” she wrote on her Instagram page, captioning a photo where she is on a boat ready to throw a rose into the water in memory of her son. Beside him, his timeless Erwin Bach, pointing to the horizon.

If they never had children, then we are obliged to accompany them in the most difficult moments of life. And this until his death, as promised.

In the video: the trailer Tinathe documentary film dedicated to the “Queen of Rock and Roll”.