Ike Turner Jr., the second-eldest child in the brood shared by fellow musicians Tina and Ike, has died.
He had turned 67 the day before his death.
Turner died Saturday of kidney failure in a Los Angeles hospital, his cousin Jaqueline Bullock, Tina Turner’s niece, told TMZ. He’d had severe cardiac problems for years and suffered a stroke in September, she said.
He was second in line behind Craig Raymond Turner, Tina Turner’s child with saxophonist Raymond Hill. Ike Jr.’s biological mother was Lorraine Taylor, Ike Sr.’s first wife with whom he had two children. Tina Turner adopted both Ike Jr. and his brother, Michael, when she married Ike Sr. in 1962, and Ike Sr. adopted Craig. The two also had a son together, Ronnie Turner.
Craig Turner committed suicide in 2019 at age 59, while Ronnie Turner died of late-stage colon cancer complicated by cardiovascular disease in 2022, at age 62. The most recent information publicly available about Michael Turner came from Ike Jr., who told an interviewer in 2017 his brother had suffered “several strokes and seizures” and was confined to a wheelchair, according to People. In 2018 Ike said Michael was in a convalescent home in Southern California and needed ongoing medical support but was “doing great.”
After Ike Jr.’s parents divorced in 1978, he worked for a short time as Tina Turner’s sound engineer, but Ike Sr. ended that. Ike Jr. worked with his father too, and in 2007 shared a Grammy for best traditional blues album for Ike Sr.’s “Risin’ With the Blues,” which the son produced. Ikr Sr. died the following year of a cocaine overdose.
Tina Turner died in 2023 at age 83 after a long illness while Ike Jr. was jailed in Texas on coke and crack cocaine charges.
Bullock said Ike Jr. was more like a brother than a cousin, given they had grown up together. Afida Turner, Ronnie’s wife, mourned the loss of her “amazing brother-in-law” on Instagram, saying she was glad they’d had a chance to speak before he died. “Rest in Peace, Ike Jr.,” she wrote.
