What’s Love Got to Do With It? Ike and Tina’s Troubled Relationship

Born into Chaos

Born Anna Mae Bullock, Tina was born to what she describes as “well-to-do farmers.” While the family was comfortable financially, there were other problems. Her parents, Floyd and Zelma, were always fighting. “They didn’t love each other,” Tina told Rolling Stone Magazine in 1986.

Tina Turner singing circa 1969

Photo by Jack Robinson / Hulton Archive / Getty Images

In fact, her mother was in the process of leaving her husband when she got pregnant with Tina. She decided to stay at the last minute, but the couple fought relentlessly. When Tina was ten years old, Zelma packed up and left. Tina, however, says that her mother walking out didn’t have that much of an effect on her. It was growing up with her mother that left an emotional scar on the singer.