In 2016, legendary singer Tina Turner — then 76 years old — was facing death head-on. Years of struggling with high blood pressure, a stroke, and then kidney failure had taken their toll. Her doctors delivered the news: without a kidney transplant, she would likely have only months to live.
Rather than panic, Tina took control in a way only she could. She began planning her own funeral — choosing the music, the flowers, and even the location. Her acceptance of death was not dramatic, but almost peaceful. After a lifetime of pain, struggle, and triumph, she was ready.
“I was ready to go,” she later wrote in her memoir.
“But then Erwin changed everything.”
Her husband, Erwin Bach, the man she had married in 2013 after nearly 30 years together, did something almost unthinkable: he offered to donate one of his own kidneys.
At first, Tina refused. She couldn’t bear the thought of putting him at risk.
But Erwin insisted. Quiet, steadfast, and full of love, he told her that his life was nothing without hers. He was tested — and miraculously, they were a match.
The transplant was risky. The recovery would be long. But in April 2017, the surgery was performed successfully in Switzerland.
“I am alive today because of Erwin,” Tina said in an interview.
“He gave me more than a kidney. He gave me life.”
The image of Tina Turner — once the fierce, fiery rock goddess — now fragile, vulnerable, being carried through a hospital ward, then rising again, is a powerful one.
She did recover. Slowly. With gratitude. With softness. With renewed purpose.
And she spent her final years not on stage, but in peace — writing, reflecting, and loving deeply.
That chapter in Tina’s life wasn’t just about illness. It was about love at its most selfless. A story not of endings, but of choosing life — for someone else.