## The Public Narrative and the 1986 Memoir
Tina Turner’s 1986 autobiography, I, Tina: My Life Story, co-written with Kurt Loder, was published by William Morrow and Company on September 1, 1986. It was a worldwide bestseller.
The book created a new public frame for the Tina Turner story. Before the memoir, most of what the American public knew about her prior circumstances came from the 1981 People interview and from whatever had been reported in coverage of the career. The memoir was comprehensive, detailed, and written in her own voice as shaped by Loder, who was an experienced journalist. It sold widely and was the foundation for the 1993 film.
The book covered her childhood in Nutbush, the years in St. Louis, the formation of the Revue, the Grammy for “Proud Mary,” and the private circumstances of the marriage that had not been public knowledge. It also covered the rebuilding years and the Private Dancer comeback.
By telling the story in her own terms, in a full-length book designed for a mass readership, Tina Turner established ownership of the narrative that the name carried. The name “Tina Turner” was not just a commercial label for a performer; after the memoir, it was attached to a specific story — a story of survival and reinvention — that had a cultural meaning independent of any individual recording or concert.
In 2018 she published a second autobiography, My Love Story, which covered the years since I, Tina — the relationship with Erwin Bach, the move to Switzerland, the health challenges of her later years, the marriage and the kidney donation, and her stated desire to live a life that was not defined by the retelling of her trauma.