Cher has revealed that Tina Turner asked her for help leaving her abusive marriage to Ike Turner in the late 1970s.
Cher, 78, had a nearly five-decade friendship with Turner, who died at age 83 in 2023, and wrote in her new tome Cher: The Memoir, Part One how Turner had begged her for help leaving Ike after another beating.
The Best hitmaker Turner had asked Cher for help covering up a bruise, with Cher writing: “One of the days we were filming, he came to my room before we went on asking if I had any cover-ups. I had a bruise on my arm that I didn’t want to show on camera. I told him I had something that would work.
She then asked Cher how she left her first husband, Sonny Bono, whom she married in 1969 and divorced in 1975.
Cher wrote: ‘I looked at her and said, “I just got out and moved on.”
The singer recalled how Turner’s plea reminded her of when she asked Lucille Ball how to leave Bono.
Cher has revealed that Tina Turner asked her for help leaving her abusive marriage to Ike Turner in the late 1970s (pictured in 2008).
Turner and Ike became known in the ’60s and ’70s for The Ike and Tina Revue, but behind closed doors, Ike was inflicting sickening violence on Tina (pictured in 1963).
She wrote: ‘I called Lucille Ball for advice. I said, “Lucy, I want to leave Sonny and you’re the only one I know who’s been in this same situation. What should I do?”
‘Lucy and her husband had also become famous working together as television stars. And he was also a great womanizer. Then Lucy had left him.
Turner and Cher first met on The Sonny and Cher Show in 1972, and the pair had a memorable duet in a performance of Shirley & Company’s Shame Shame Shame on The Cher Show in 1975.
Turner would divorce Ike in 1978.
In October 2023, Cher described her last visit to the Queen of Rock before her death in May of that year at age 83 as a visit filled with laughter.
The Oscar winner had traveled to Switzerland, where Tina had lived since 1995.
‘I have to see it. She was leaning back in the chair and said, “I’m tired,” she said. People.
“Then for two hours we were running around the house and she was laughing hysterically,” he recalled.
Cher, 78, had a nearly five-decade friendship with Turner, who died at age 83 in 2023, and wrote in her new tome Cher: The Memoir, Part One how Turner had begged her for help leaving Ike after another beating – pictured 1975 with Kate Smith
“I just needed to talk and scream,” he said of the Proud Mary singer, who had been battling a series of health problems, including a stroke, intestinal cancer and kidney failure.
‘That’s the Tina I loved. We had a great time and talked about old times.’
Cher and Tina emerged in the music business around the same time. Both were married to older men, whom they later divorced.
Turner and Ike became known in the ’60s and ’70s for The Ike and Tina Revue, but behind closed doors, Ike was inflicting sickening violence on Tina.
A brief Knoxville romance with saxophonist Raymond Hill produced her first child, Craig, before musician and singer Ike Turner invited her to join his band and then his bed.
Then came well-known years of domestic violence. “Broken lips, black eyes, dislocated joints, broken bones and psychological torment became part of everyday life,” he writes.
“I tried to stay sane while dealing with his madness,” Turner said.
But her depression and despondency over Ike’s abuse and infidelities led Tina to attempt suicide in 1968 by taking 50 sleeping pills backstage before a concert.
It would take time, but Tina found greater success than she had ever experienced in her youth with the release of her 1984 album Private Dancer when she was 45 years old.
Grammys, sold-out tours and even love quickly followed for Turner, who in 1986 began a relationship with German record executive Erwin Bach, to whom she was married from 2013 until his death.
In a 2008 interview with Oprah WinfreyThe two friends remembered their first meeting.
“The first time Tina and I worked together, she came into the studio and I was expecting, you know, Tina Turner,” the former variety show host explained.
Cher wrote: ‘I looked at her and said, “I just got out and moved on.” – in the photo from 1999
But she arrives dressed in a silk shirt, pants and high heels. … Then we started talking, and I have a sailor’s mouth, and Tina is very gentle, she talks like a lady.’
‘She kept looking at me, like, “Wow, where did you come from?” Cher noticed their personality differences.
Thinking about his next performance, the If I Could Turn Back Time artist said: “I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to have to dance with Tina Turner.’
‘Do you know what that feels like?’ she asked.
“It’s like dancing with a hurricane.”
The two collaborated again on Proud Mary in 1999 with Elton John on VH1’s Divas Live, and reunited backstage in 2008 at the Grammy Awards. Cher introduced Beyonce with whom Tina performed a medley that included Proud Mary.