Tina Turner, an American-born and naturalized Swiss singer died at the age of 83 on Wednesday after battling a long illness.

She was popularly known as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before she went on to successfully pursue her career as a solo performer.

Her spokesperson said in a statement: “Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.” This made many fans wonder why she chose to spend the later part of her life in Switzerland, instead of her birth country.

Where was Tina Turner born?

Tina Turner was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, on November 26, 1939. Over the years she built her career in the US, first as a co-lead vocalist in her first husband, Ike Tuner’s band, and later as a solo artist.

Tina married her second husband, Erwin Bach in July 2013, on the banks of Lake Zurich in Küsnacht, Switzerland. In January 2022 that the couple bought a $76 million sprawling waterfront estate in Zürich.

At the time, Bach told the Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung that he and Turner had decided to buy more property in the European country after gaining their Swiss citizenship.

Why did Tina Turner live in Switzerland?

Tina’s relationship with Switzerland began much before she got married there. She moved to the European country in 1995. “I have left America because my success was in another country and my boyfriend was in another country… My boyfriend moved there to run the company and I always wanted to go to Switzerland and I was very happy,” she said at the time about her decision to leave the United States.

She reiterated that she was “very happy in Switzerland” to the Swiss newspaper Blick ten years ago. She added that she felt “at home here…I cannot imagine a better place to live”. Turner gave up her US passport in the same year that she married Bach and learned German. A plaque on the front of her estate reads: “Do not even think about bothering Tina Turner before noon”.