The wife of Tina Turner and Ike Turner’s only child is in a state of grief after he died after a battle with colon cancer.
Afida Turner, 46, the widow of Ronnie Turner, 62, shared with People that her “heart is destroyed” following his passing. He died just months before his mother Tina died from health-related issues in May. She was 83.
“It’s a punishment. Morning and night, I’m crying and screaming,” the French-born singer said. “My life in Los Angeles became a nightmare — a real nightmare. That’s why I got the f— out of there. No house, no furniture. Just my memories and Ronnie’s clothes.”
She added: “It was very sad that Ronnie passed, and then his mom passed six months after. It is very difficult for me because people only see the music or the pictures, but I go back home and scream the names of my loved ones. [That pain] will never go away.”
Afida further revealed that she plans to have a child using the sperm he froze for her as a birthday gift.
“If I can,” she said about the possibility of carrying his child. “I’m 46. But we’ll see.”
While Ronnie was alive, he suffered from substance abuse but spent the last three years of his life sober. It was last November when he decided he was ready for fatherhood, but doctors had found a tumor in his colon and was subsequently diagnosed with late-stage metastatic colon cancer, which spread to the pancreas and stomach.
Just a month later, he collapsed and died.
Afida now hopes she can carry a baby through IVF before her 47th birthday in December.
“It’s still bad because he’s not here, but what can I do?” she questioned. “At least I will have a little one that looks like Ronnie. A monster like me and him, can you imagine?”
Afida and Ronnie married in 2007 after meeting just three months prior. She said their marriage was bliss.
“We didn’t have no f*cking money. We had a very small wedding,” she recalls of the ceremony in Hollywood. According to People, Tina had cut her children from accessing her finances.
Afida further added that like Ronnie, she was born into an abusive home. But the couple found stability in each other and were deeply in love.
“I am a very straight-up person, and Ike and Tina liked that, because they were the same kind of people. Ronnie too,” she said, adding that her husband never abused her. “When I screamed, he broke plates,” she admits, her voice thick with emotion. “But he was kind. He loved the drama, and was like the same blood. I belonged to that family.”
