According to TMZ on Friday morning, Ronnie Turner is alleged to have been found unconscious by neighbours, who tried unsuccessfully to revive him.
It is still unknown what caused his death, and whether it was related to his earlier cancer diagnosis.
His 83-year-old well-known mother has not yet commented on his passing, but his wife Afida has already posted an homage to her late husband, sharing pictures of their shared experiences.
I gave it my best effort this time, she wrote. “I was unable to save you,” I said.
Only four years have passed since Craig, the singer’s elder son, committed suicide by shooting himself in July 2018. Turner became pregnant with saxophonist Raymond Hill when she was barely 18 years old, giving birth to Craig.
Ronnie’s home was reportedly the first place where police were called on Thursday morning when someone—possibly his wife, Afida—phoned to report that he was having trouble breathing outside their Los Angeles home.
When they arrived at the San Fernando Valley residence, paramedics saw neighbours performing CPR.
However, their efforts ultimately came to nothing, and Ronnie was declared dead there and then.
On Friday, his grief-stricken wife posted a rambling tribute to her late-husband, whom she called a ‘true angel’ with a ‘huge soul who is ‘highly spiritual.’
She said he was her ‘best friend, my baby,’ while she was ‘your mummy, your nurse.’
‘Love you for this 17 years,’ Afida wrote, adding: ‘This is very, very, very bad, I am very mad.
‘This is a tragedy, [you] with your brother Craig and your father Ike Turner and Aline,’ she continued as she wished he would ‘rest in Paradise.’
‘So unfair,’ she concluded.
In the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It, which chronicled his mother’s life, Ronnie co-starred with his mother.
He had a history of drug-related arrests, and in August 1999, he was found in possession of cocaine; at the time, the police claimed he was selling the narcotic.
According to RadarOnline, a court in Los Angeles placed his bond at $45,000 at the time, noting that he had already been found guilty of drug possession just two years prior, as well as drug sale in 1987 and cocaine possession in 1988.
Ronnie had to register as a narcotics offender in the aftermath, but was said to have failed to kick his addiction — even going as far as to kick his common-law wife and their two children out of his apartment when they tried to push him to stop taking drugs.
The family is said to have taken refuge in their car in the aftermath, with one insider saying at the time: ‘At night they all curled up in the back seat of the car and slept — while Ronnie was happily living in the family apartment paid for by Tina.’
Tina and her husband Ike welcomed Ronnie into the world in 1960. After Tina accused Ike of hitting her, the pair broke up in 1976. Ike later passed away from a heroin overdose in 2007.
She also took in Ike Jr. and Mike, the two sons of her former husband Ike Turner. Ike Jr. admitted to being estranged from his adopted mother to DailyMail.com in 2018; she and her husband, German music producer Erwin Bach, currently reside in Switzerland.
The famous couple just bought a huge $68 million mansion with views of Lake Zurich in September.
Mike maintains a very low profile, and not much is known about his personal affairs.
Four years after his older brother, Craig, killed himself at his Studio City home at the age of 59, Ronnie’s death is only the most recent tragedy to hit the well-known family.
Craig suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Craig, Tina’s oldest child, was previously described as “a very emotional youngster” who was upset by how her ex-husband had tortured her.
They saw the dark eyes, as she said to Oprah in 2005. Ike’s children showed no signs of grief, but my oldest son, Craig, was a very sensitive young man. He constantly had a melancholy expression on his face.
