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Cher is opening up about her relationship with Tina Turner. After Tina’s death on Wednesday at age 83, Cher called into MSNBC’s “The Beat With Ari Melber” to discuss visiting her late pal amid her illness.
“I started going to visit her because I thought, ‘I need to put this time into our friendship, so she knows we haven’t forgotten her,’” Cher said. “So we all took turns going and spending time with her and it made her happy.”
Though Tina’s cause of death has yet to be revealed, Cher noted that Tina “had her dialysis machine in her house.” Dialysis is used on people who have kidney failure or end-stage renal disease. Tina had a kidney transplant from her husband, Erwin Bach, in 2017.
“She fought this sickness for such a long time and she was so strong as you think she would be, but I know towards the end, she told me once, she said, ‘I’m really ready. I just don’t want to put up with this anymore,’” Cher recalled.
Still, Cher said Tina “was really happy” despite her illness, before recalling the first time she visited her friend at her home in Switzerland.
“She said, ‘I can’t spend too much time,’ and then five hours later we were laughing like crazy and she wanted to get up and show everything she bought in the house,” she said. “… She was having a good time in spite of the fact that she was really sick and not wanting people to know about it.”
The final time Cher made the trip, she didn’t leave empty-handed.
“She gave me a pair of shoes the last time I saw her. What kind of shoes? Tina Turner shoes!” Cher quipped. “The big high heels that she just [walked] around in like they were nothing.”
The pair met amid Tina’s abusive relationship with Ike Turner, whom she was married to from 1962 to 1978.
“When I first knew her, she was still with Ike,” Cher said. “It was very strange to see her with Ike and afterward. I was so thrilled, because afterward, she was so free. You could just see her being able to take a big breath. Her new life was like a big, fresh breath.”
Tina and Cher “really got close once she left Ike, then we started spending time together,” the latter woman said.
“She was such a force. Honestly, I think she just hit everything head-on… She wasn’t about to stop. She might not have won every battle, but she fought every war. She was there fighting for all the things she believed in,” Cher said. “… She’s one of the great artists in our generation, in rock and roll. There was no other person like her. There’s no other person who could come close to who she was.”
At the end of the day, the two women were “perfect friends for each other,” Cher believes, noting, “She gave me lots of strength sometimes, and I gave her lots of strength too.”
Tina’s rep confirmed the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s death on Wednesday, revealing that she died peacefully after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland. Turner’s verified Instagram account also posted a statement confirming the tragic news.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner. With her music and her boundless passion for life, she enchanted millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow,” the statement read. “Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who leaves us all her greatest work: her music. All our heartfelt compassion goes out to her family. Tina, we will miss you dearly.”
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