Proud Tina
- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Nominee Tina Turner, 81, is getting excited ahead of next month’s announcement, urging fans to vote for her and the other talented artists.
- Many fans have been outraged that the Proud Mary singer has not already been inducted as a solo artist; Turner is now leading the fan votes for the prestigious music honor.
- Turner is an intestinal cancer survivor who has endured abuse and other trauma. A leading expert tells SurvivorNet about the connection between stress and cancer.
Turner has been inducted into the Hall of Fame before, as a musical duo in 1991 with the late Ike Turner, her ex-husband who she suffered many years of abuse from until she finally walked away. Now, the Proud Mary singer is nominated as a solo artist, getting the recognition she deserves as a legendary rock star.
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The fact that she says you can vote for other amazing artists too just shows what a class act she is. Fans can vote for their top 5, and the artist or band who racks up the most votes will automatically win the “fan vote.”
Many fans have been outraged that Turner has not already been inducted as a solo artist. She went solo in 1984 and it has taken this long for her to get a nomination after being eligible since 2009.
Currently, the What’s Love Got To Do With It singer is leading the 4.1 million plus fan votes with over 500,000. The inductees will be announced next month.
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Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks is currently the only female to have been inducted twice, so Turner would be next in line, along with fellow nominee Carole King. A solo artist or band must have released its first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination in order to be eligible, according to the RARHOF website.
The 36th annual induction ceremony will be held in Cleveland, Ohio on October 30.
The Rolling Stone podcast discusses her recent documentary film, Tina, and all of her triumphs despite her heartbreaking suffering.
Podcast host Brian Hiatt, who encourages fans to vote for Turner, said “it’s one of those stories that bears telling over and over… you just feel for her so intensely. It was just wrenching for her to say that it wasn’t a good life.”
Not only was she abused by Ike Turner, but she was abandoned by her parents as a child. Then later, she battled through intestinal cancer, and survived a stroke and kidney failure. Turner’s song Craig recently committed suicide.
Thankfully, the multi-talented force found love again with Erwin Bach, a German music producer who actually served as Turner’s kidney donor, the ultimate act of love.
Hope After Tragedy
Turner and Bach’s heartwarming story is right out of a fairy tale.
"We met at Cologne Airport actually, it was Düsseldorf Airport in Germany, and her manager Roger Davies asked me to pick up Tina," Bach said in the Tina documentary.
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"He was younger,” Turner added. “He was 30 years old at the time and had the prettiest face.”
The pair got married in Switzerland at their Lake Zurich home in 2013. The bride wore a green taffeta and black silk tulle gown by Giorgio Armani, adorned with Swarovski crystals. The couple had asked guests, which included Oprah Winfrey and singer Bryan Adams, to arrive in formal dress; men in black tie and women in white.
Turner told Hello! magazine at the time that she had a reached a stage in her life she called “Nirvana.” And she deserves it.
Surviving Intestinal Cancer
Unfortunately, Tina’s rough times were not over. In 2018, Turner announced that she had beaten intestinal cancer (she discovered the rare disease early and had part of her intestine removed), and that she also had a successful kidney transplant.
In Turner's recent book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, she wrote about how dealing with illness has reminded her to seize the day. "Over the years I have summoned up my inner lion and overcome each health problem," she said. "Illness has given me a greater appreciation for health and reminds me to live each day to its fullest."
The warrior also suffered from a stroke right after her wedding to Bach.
"The stroke had delivered a powerful blow to my body… I would have to work with a physiotherapist to learn how to walk again," Turner said to Oprah in 2018.
That same year, her son Craig took his life at 59. "I'm still trying to find out why he did it. Maybe something from his childhood followed him through life and was still weighing on him, and he just couldn't handle it anymore. I don't know."
Stress and Cancer
Many people believe that stress causes cancer, which isn't exactly true from what doctors have found. But there is a correlation.
Dr. Heather Yeo, a colorectal surgeon and oncologist from Weill Cornell Medicine, expands upon this controversial topic with SurvivorNet.
"There is no doubt that stress and your immune system affect your body and affect your body's chance of healing," Dr. Yeo says. "Many patients are very anxious and worried that they cause their own cancer through stress or anxiety. I always tell patients, you can't look in the past and you certainly can't blame yourself."
Stress does impact your body’s ability to mount an immune response. "Stress certainly decreases your immune system and it may decrease your body's ability to fight certain cancers,” Dr. Yeo says.
When there is an excess of stress hormones going on, "your body has a hard time recovering and cancer takes advantage of that."
Patients Do Better When They are Less Stressed
The Power of Support: Beating Cancer with Her Husband at Her Side
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
