May 27 2023, Published 3:00 p.m. ET
Tina Turner’s reportedly spent her final years in agony, fighting several health battles and mourning the death of her son leading up to her passing earlier this week, RadarOnline.com has learned.
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In her first interview since the I Don’t Wanna Fight singer’s death, Tina’s daughter-in-law Afida opened up about Queen of Rock n Roll’s health issues as well as the incredible heartbreak she suffered outliving half of her own children.
“She was ill for a long time, but she was extraordinarily strong too,” Afida told the Daily Mail. “She was fighting for her life from 2017 until now. We knew how sick she was, but she was doing so well that this was not expected.”
She also revealed that the family was in shock over Tina’s passing, admitting that her strength and resilience made them all think she would live forever.
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The family was still recovering from the “gut-wrenching grief” over the loss of Tina’s son, Afida’s late husband, Ronnie, who died from colon cancer just five months before the singer’s passing.
Tina lost another son, Craig, in 2018 when he shot himself at 59.
Afida told the outlet that losing Craig and Ronnie was a heartache that Tina carried with her every day. “If you lose a child, or a loved one, you are going to cry every morning and every night.”
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The Thunderdome actress’ daughter-in-law says that Tina found strength in her Buddhist faith. She added that the only “dim light” to come out of her mother-in-law’s passing was knowing she had finally been reunited with her sons.
“They never had time to spend together, and now all three of them are together,” she said.
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Soon after Craig’s death, Tina told the BBC she “didn’t know what took him to the edge.”
She told the outlet that he was the happiest he had ever been before. ‘Because at that stage, he had said to me that he had never met a woman that he felt that way about.”
“He was bringing her to meet me [for] his birthday in August. He had decorated his apartment that I bought him years ago,” she continued. “I have no idea what pulled him down, except something that followed him with loneliness. I think it was something with being alone.”
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The Proud Mary singer reportedly became too ill to care for her son in his final weeks. Afida says that her infamous “force of nature and endurance” was clear to see in Ronnie even as he battled the cancer that ravaged his health so quickly.
“I believe you are born like that. You are born with her kind of energy. Ronnie was so like that too. He was so strong. He never got sick,” she told the outlet.
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Tina Turner passed away at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, where a funeral is currently planned to be held.