Global Courant 2023-05-25 22:47:02
“I’m still trying to figure out why he did it,” Tina Turner said in 2018, while telling Oprah Winfrey about her son Craig’s suicide.
The rock icon was just 18 when she had Craig in 1958 with her partner, Raymond Hill, who was a saxophonist with Ike Turner’s band Kings of Rhythm.
Craig was later adopted by Ike after he and Turner married in 1962.
He was the eldest of Turner’s four children, the others being Ronnie, Turner Jr and Michael Turner.
“I think Craig was lonely”
In 2018, Craig was found dead at the age of 59.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Department confirmed that Craig was found dead at his home in Studio City, California from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“I think Craig was lonely, that’s what I think made him more than anything else,” Turner told CBS News.
Turner described Craig as an “introverted person” and “very shy”.
He was working with a well-known real estate company and was in a relationship.
Turner described Craig’s death as “the saddest moment as a mother”.
She tweeted: “On Thursday July 19, 2018, I said my final goodbyes to my son, Craig Raymond Turner, as I gathered with family and friends to scatter his ashes on the shores of California. He was 59 when he tragically died, but he will always be my baby.”
‘I still don’t know what drove him to the edge’
It was a loss Turner felt keenly.
“I still don’t know what got him to this point because at that stage he had told me he had never met a woman he felt this way about,” she told the BBC.
“He was bringing her to see me for his birthday in August. He had decorated his apartment, which I bought for him years ago. He had taken a new job with a well-known real estate company in California. I have no idea what attracted him, other than something that followed was loneliness. I think it was something about being alone,” she added.
She said she noticed a change in their recent conversations.
“The last times we talked, the conversations were different and I didn’t know that until after the suicide.”
Tina Turner described the scattering of her son’s ashes as “the saddest moment as a mother”.
In her memoir My Love Story, Turner revealed that she struggled with suicidal thoughts during her abusive relationship with Ike Turner, but said that despite the darkness at the time, she survived.
In 2005, speaking to Oprah before Craig’s death, Turner described her as “a very emotional child” who struggled to see past the abuse she faced.
“He was always looking down sadly,” Turner said. “One day when Ike was fighting with me, Craig knocked on the door and said, ‘Mom, are you okay?’ I thought, ‘Oh, please, don’t beat me at home.’ I didn’t want my children to hear.”
Ronnie Turner’s ‘Dear Boy’
Ronnie was Turner’s youngest son and was born in October 1960. He married French musician Afida Turner in 2007.
Ronnie Turner’s son (L) Tina Turner and his wife Feda in 2007.
Before his death, no specific diagnosis was revealed, but doctors later said he died at the age of 62 after complications from colon cancer. After his death in 2022, Turner paid tribute to her “beloved son” and at the time, she posted a black and white image on Instagram.
“Ronnie, you left the world too soon. With sadness, I close my eyes and think of you, my dear son”, said the singer in the caption.
“I did my best until the end,” she added.
After her marriage to Ike, singer Proud Mary adopted his two children, Ike Jr and Michael, in 1960.
Ike Jr was born in 1958 to his parents Ike and Lorraine Taylor, and according to reports, he was also a musician just like his father.
Michael was born in 1959, but he hasn’t kept to the limelight.
After Turner broke up with Ike, she had little contact with Ike Jr. and Michael.
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