Tina Turner says turning 80 is "a second chance at life".
The ‘Proud Mary’ hitmaker celebrates the milestone birthday on Tuesday (26.11.19) and she is positive about getting older after suffering with ill health in recent years, including battling cancer and having a kidney transplant.
She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "I’m 80. What do I think? How did I think I would be at 80? Not like this.
"I look great. I feel good. I have gone through some very serious sicknesses that I am overcoming.
"It’s like having a second chance at life. I am happy to be an 80-year-old."
The ‘(Simply) The Best’ singer suffered a mild stroke in 2013 – shortly after marrying music executive Erwin Bach – and had to learn how to walk again, and just three years later she was diagnosed with kidney failure and intestinal cancer.
Doctors removed part of her intestine to treat the cancer, but the kidney problems worsened as Tina considered assisted suicide.
In 2017, her husband Erwin gave her one of his own kidneys, and she had a successful transplant operation.
Reflecting in ‘My Love Story: A Memoir’ last year, she wrote: "I know that my medical adventure is far from over. There’s always another test, another doctor’s appointment or biopsy to get through.
"We’re both still here closer than we ever imagined and that’s cause for celebration."
She opened up on the tough time, and described her life as "surviving but not living" as she started thinking "about death".
She said: "By December 2016, my kidneys were at 20% and plunging rapidly. I faced two choices: either regular dialysis or a kidney transplant. Only the transplant would give me a good chance of a near-normal life. But the chances of getting a donor kidney were remote … [Dialysis] wasn’t my idea of life.
"But the toxins in my body had started taking over. I couldn’t eat. I was surviving but not living. I began to think about death. He said he didn’t want another woman, or another life. Then he shocked me. He said he wanted to give me one of his kidneys."
Tina Turner: 80th birthday is second chance at life
