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Tina Turner broke her silence over the death of her and Ike Turner’s son, Ronnie Turner. Ronnie passed away on Dec. 8, and Tina, 83, issued a statement over the tragedy. “Ronnie, you left the world far too early,” she shared on Friday, the day when news of Ronnie’s death broke. Tina shared a black and white photo of her with her eyes closed to her Instagram, a means for her to express her grief. “In sorrow, I close my eyes and think of you, my beloved son.”
Ronnie died after medics were called to his San Fernando Valley home. TMZ, who first reported the news, noted that the individual who made the 911 call said that Ronnie was having trouble breathing before he stopped breathing altogether. Bystanders attempted CPR, but Ronnie was reportedly declared dead on the scene. The Los Angeles County Corner didn’t initially identify the cause of death to HollywoodLife and said the investigation was still ongoing.
Ronnie’s death was later confirmed by his wife, the French singer Afida Turner. “My god, Ronnie Turner. A True angel. Huge soul. Highly spiritual. My husband, my best friend. Baby. Your mummy, your nurse, I did the best to the end this time I was no[t] able to save you,” she wrote in the caption of an Instagram Gallery that she posted the day she lost Ronnie. “Love you for… 17 years this is very very very bad and I am very mad. This is a tragedy u with your brother Craig and your father Ike Turner and Aline rest in paradise… So unfair.”
Ronnie was the youngest child that Tina had with her late ex-husband, Ike Turner. It was a relationship marred by longstanding allegations of physical abuse. Tragedy would strike again long after Tina left Ike in 1976. Their eldest son, Craig Turner, passed away in 2018 at age 59 after taking his own life. Ike passed in 2007 at age 76 from a drug overdose.
Tina would adopt two of Ike’s children from other relationships – Ike Turner Jr. and Michael Turner. In 2018, Ike Jr. told DailyMail that he hadn’t spoken to his mother since around 2000, Fox News would report in 2021 that Michael, Ronnie, and Ike Jr. were “devastated” when they were mostly left out of the HBO Max documentary, Tina.
Tina retired from performing in 2009. She relinquished her American citizenship in 2013, per the Washington Post, the same year she married German music producer Erwin Bach (the Post noted that Tina is fluent in German.) In April 2013, she took the oath of Swiss nationality. By relinquishing her citizenship, the Post notes that she did not “formally renounce her U.S. citizenship under 349(a)(5) Immigration and Nationality Act, but took Swiss citizenship with the intent to lose her U.S. citizenship.”
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