Tina Turner met Erwin Bach in an airport when she was 47. She was with him until she died.

Tina Turner's music is legendary. 

But throughout her life in the spotlight, there was one story in particular that always dominated headlines:  her marriage to Ike Turner.

After managing to escape the abusive relationship with only the clothes on her back and 36 cents in her purse, she rebuilt her life, career and family. 

It was a decade later that Turner would meet the man who she called "the love of my life", Erwin Bach. 

With the world still reeling from the news that Tina Turner has passed away, we look back on the couple's incredible love story. 

Watch: TINA — The Tina Turner Musical trailer. Post continues below.

In 1985 the pair first crossed paths.

They were at Düsseldorf Airport in Germany, when Erwin Bach was asked by Turner's manager to pick her up from the airport. Bach was a high-profile music executive.

Reflecting on their meet-cute, Turner said in the 2021 HBO documentary Tina that she was initially unsure about pursuing things due to their age gap. He was 30 then, and she had just turned 47.

"He was younger. He had the prettiest face. I mean, you cannot [describe] it. It was like insane. [I thought], 'Where did he come from?' He was really so good-looking. My heart [was beating fast] and it means that a soul has met, and my hands were shaking," Turner said.

Bach felt the same and the couple began dating. 

Three years later, around Turner's 50th birthday, Bach decided to propose. But for Turner, she wasn't ready.

"I said, 'I don't have an answer.' It wasn't yes, it wasn't no. Marriage says ownership. I didn't want that 'my' anything, anymore. I had enough of that," she later explained to Oprah.

Tina Turner and Erwin Bach in 1989, the early days of their relationship. Image: Getty.

When Turner was 57, she moved to Switzerland with Bach. They lived in Zurich together in a very lush chateau, and years later Turner formally relinquished her U.S. citizenship.

In 2009, she retired from performing with a 50-year anniversary tour. She wrote in her autobiography that it had been a decision coming for quite some time, and that she was craving a new chapter with Bach and her family.

"I knew this was it. I got up the next morning, didn't see anybody, and boarded the plane with Erwin. I sat there, still, calm, resolute. I took a deep breath and told myself, 'I'm not going back [to performing]," she wrote.

Then in 2013, after 28 years together, Turner and Bach married.

She explained that after their decades together, Turner felt a trust with Bach that she never had in previous relationships. Turner felt safe.

More than 200 guests all wearing white joined the couple at their Swiss estate. Bryan Adams performed 'All for Love as Turner and Bach walked down the aisle. She wore quite the wedding dress — it had a black sparkly bodice with a black and green tulle skirt.

She said to Hello! Magazine that her wedding day felt like reaching "Nirvana".

Reflecting on that moment, she later wrote: "I lived through a hellish marriage that almost destroyed me, but I went on. Good came out of bad. Joy came out of pain. And I have never been so completely happy as I am today."

Over the years, Bach helped Turner through a series of medical emergencies, including a stroke and intestinal cancer, and in 2017, he donated a kidney when she went into kidney failure.

Turner would often be asked about her first marriage in interviews. And although she would reflect on her time with Ike Turner, it took a toll.

As Bach said in the Tina documentary: "When you talk to journalists over and over for 20, 30, 40 years, memories come back. She has dreams about it that aren't pleasant. These are the things that come back to her when she opens that box. It's like when soldiers come back from the war. You try to forget."

Tina Turner and Erwin Bach at the opening of her musical. Image: Getty.

Bach says Turner was his person for life.

"It's love. It's something we both have for each other. I always refer to it as an electrical charge. I still have it. Even though when I left her two hours ago, I still have that feeling. It's in my heart. I feel very warm about this."

Turner wrote in her autobiography that finding someone who wasn't intimidated by her career, talents or fame was hard to find. But in Bach she had exactly that, saying they granted each other the "freedom and space to be individuals".

"He shows me that true love doesn't require the dimming of my light so that he can shine. On the contrary, we are the light of each other's lives, and we want to shine as bright as we can, together."

Feature Image: Getty.