BETTER THAN ALL THE REST

She wanted to be remembered as the queen of rock nn roll who paved the way for women striving for success on on their own terms

- NICOLA WHITFIELD

IT SHOULDN’T have been such a shock: she was 83 years old and everyone has to go at some stage. But when that person is Tina Turner, you might be lulled into thinking she’d go on forever.

She was such a life force – big smile, big hair, big voice, big personality, big energy – that it was almost as if ordinary rules shouldn’t apply to her.

Yet of course they do. And the truth is Tina was a lot more vulnerable than her formidable presence suggested. The woman who over came misogyny and abuse and became one of the most success ful singers of all time was also plagued by ill health.

As the tributes poured in from around the world, a poignant Instagram message she posted just two months ago spoke of wistful regret.

“If I had known how high blood pressure and kidney disease are connected I would have been spared a lot of suffering,” she said.

The official cause of death Tina’s death at her home in Küs- nacht in Switzerland was given as natural causes but kidney disease may well have been at the root of it. Her social media message coincided with World Kidney Day on Tina performs at a concert in London in 2009. The star said she ignored hypertension warning signs for decades.

9 March and Tina, diagnosed with hypertension in the late 1970s, spoke of how she’d ignored the warning signs for decades.

“My kidneys are victims of my not realising that my high blood pressure should have been treated with conventional medicine,” she said. “I have put myself in grave danger by refusing to face the reality that I need daily lifelong therapy with medication.”