In 2019, Tina Turner told Oprah she was 'ready to go'. For the next year, Oprah waited for 'the call'.

Oprah Winfrey had readied herself for "the call" in 2019.

She had just been to visit Tina Turner at a hospital in Switzerland, where the music legend told her she was tired and ready 'to leave this earth'.

"I left the hospital thinking that would be my last time seeing her," Winfrey wrote in an essay honouring her friend on Oprah Daily.

"I was on alert for a full year afterward, waiting to get 'the call' from her devoted husband, Erwin. Instead there were calls with news of improvements, new treatments, therapies, doctors. There were setbacks and stabilisation. I even received an invite to celebrate her 80th birthday, then her 82nd."

Turner had a series of medical emergencies in recent years, including a stroke and intestinal cancer. In 2017, her husband Erwin Bach donated a kidney when she went into kidney failure.

'The call' Winfrey was dreading didn't come for another four years, until Winfrey's friend Gayle King's phone blew up with the news. 

Turner died on May 24, 2023, following a long illness, at the age of 83.

"The words stunned me into immediate tears," Winfrey wrote.

Winfrey and Turner at the premiere of Tina - The Tina Turner Musical in November 2019, which was Turner's final public engagement. Image: Getty.

The two women — titans in their respective careers — make sense as close friends. But according to Winfrey, she was somewhat of a Turner 'groupie' before she had a personal relationship with her.

She said that Turner was her hero.

"I started out as a fan, then was a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then we eventually became friends and I got to eat eggs with truffle for the first time at her breakfast table, laugh in her kitchen, attend her wedding to [husband] Erwin.

"I would've been fine remaining a Tina groupie, but becoming her friend was a blessing in my lifetime."

Winfrey and her talk show even went on the road in 1997 to follow Turner's Wildest Dreams tour. She recalled having a Turner-inspired wig made, which she then started wearing "at all times".

She even joined her hero on stage at a show in Los Angeles, saying she'd never been more nervous for anything in her life.

In 2004, Turner surprised Winfrey on an episode The Oprah Winfrey Show celebrating the host's 50th birthday, and Winfrey's scream when she realised what had happened has gone down in talk show history.

Tina Turner surprises Oprah Winfrey for her birthday. pic.twitter.com/8OTpI69p1j

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) May 24, 2023

In 2013, a 73-year-old Turner sat down for an interview with Winfrey, speaking candidly about her thoughts on death.

"Even when it's time to leave and go to another planet, [I'm] excited about that, because I'm curious to know what it's about. Nobody can tell you because nobody has come back. 

"I'm not excited to die, but I don't regret it when it's time for me. I've done what I came here to do. Now is pleasure. I've got great friends. I have a great man in my life, now I have a great husband and I'm happy."

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In her essay, Winfrey honoured her friend's courage and thanked her.

"She is our forever goddess of rock 'n roll and was someone who contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life," she wrote.

"She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn't know existed...  I am a better woman, a better human, because her life touched mine. She was indeed simply the best."

Read more:

• Tina Turner met Erwin Bach in an airport when she was 47. She was with him until she died.
• In 1976, Tina Turner fled from her abusive husband, Ike. All she had was 36 cents.
• Tina Turner was cleaning houses in 1976. A few years later, she became one of the biggest artists in the world.

Feature image: Getty.