Tiny Tina! Toy company Mattel releases Barbie doll in honour of 40th anniversary of singer’s hit What’s Love Got to do With It – complete with her trademark hairstyle

• Barbie doll of Tina Turner marks anniversary of What’s Love Got To Do With It 
• The song was released by Turner 40 years ago and is one of the star’s top hits
• The 82-year-old said she was ‘honoured’ by the gesture from toy company Mattel

Toy company Mattel is honouring Tina Turner on the 40th anniversary of her hit song What’s Love Got To Do With It with a Barbie doll created in her likeness.

The doll, which is part of their Barbie Signature Music Series, is wearing an outfit inspired by the music video for the song – a black mini dress paired with a denim jacket and her signature hairstyle.

Turner, 82, said: ‘I am honoured to welcome my Barbie into the group of trailblazing women already represented and introduce more kids to my journey.’

The eight-time Grammy winner enjoyed huge success in the late 1960s and early 1970s performing with her former husband, Ike Turner, but the couple divorced in 1978.

Toy company Mattel has designed a Barbie doll of popstar Tina Turner to mark the 40th anniversary of What’s Love Got To Do With It

The doll has a black mini dress paired with a denim jacket and Turner’s signature hairstyle that she is known for

Tina Turner (pictured performing in 1990) has accumulated approximately $250million (£191million) from her music

In early November 2019, Turner attended the opening night of The Tina Turner Musical on Broadway, which chronicles her life and work.

She retired from performing after her last tour, which ended in 2009.

She has made nine studio albums, two live albums, two soundtracks and five compilation albums throughout the course of her career.

Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee to Floyd and Zelma Bullock, both poor sharecroppers who later split and left Turner and her sister to be raised by their grandmother, as told on Biography.com.

Following her move to St Louis, Missouri, after her grandmother’s death, Turner spent the majority of her time at Club Manhattan and was involved in the R&B scene, becoming the highlight of the Kings of Rhythm show.

The doll has all the details of Turner from her music video of What’s Love Got To Do With It, down to her denim jacket, red nails and white earrings

In 1960, after the lead singer failed to make an appearance, she sang A Fool in Love and after the recording was sent to a New York radio station, it was released under the moniker ‘Ike and Tina Turner’.

Tina and Ike set off on a tour and the group went on to make money from the success of A Fool in Love and released a number of singles, including It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, Poor Fool and Tra La La La La.

The couple married in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962 and two years later had a son called Ronnie. 

River Deep, Mountain High was a hit in the UK in 1966 and the duo became renowned for their energetic performances, and even went on to join the Rolling Stones as their opening act.

Workin’ Together was released, which included the iconic remake of the Creedence Clearwater Revival track Proud Mary. The track bagged the couple their first Grammy.

In the 1970s, Tina also appeared in her first film as she played the Acid Queen in Who’s Tommy before separating from Ike. Later, the singer revealed that Ike was often abusive and their eventual divorce in 1978 was as a result of her husband’s infidelity and drug and alcohol use.

The divorce left Tina with little money and while struggling to care for her children, she used food stamps, cleaned houses and performed in smaller venues to make ends meet.

At the start of the 1980s, Tina’s solo career started to gain traction after her remake of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together which garnered attention because of the music video in which she appeared in a rag dress with two dancers. 

Tina was back and back big and went on to release her solo album Private Dancer, which went on to win four Grammy Awards and sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

Considered an empowerment album, it featured What’s Love Got to Do With It, a number one hit on the US pop charts and winner of the Record of the Year Grammy.

She then returned to the big screen in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and sang the song from its soundtrack, We Don’t Need Another Hero, in 1985.

Her biography, I, Tina, was published a year later and made into a film called What’s Love Got to Do with It in 1993. Prior to this, she also released her second solo album Break Every Rule.

Tina then embarked on a European tour, won the Grammy for Female Rock Vocal Performance and released Foreign Affair before coming out with Wildest Dreams, Twenty Four Seven and recording soundtracks for Goldeneye and The Lion King 2.

In 1991, both Ike and Tina were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but the former was unable to attend the ceremony because he was in jail for drug possession. He died of an overdose in 2007.

A year after Ike’s death, Tina embarked on her Tina! 50th Anniversary Tour which went on to become one of the highest-selling ticketed shows of 2008 and 2009 and announced that it would be her final tour.

Tina Turner performs at the first night of her European tour at the Cologne Arena in Cologne, Germany in 2009

Singers Ike and Tina Turner pose for a portrait with their son Ronnie and step-sons in 1972

Tina Turner and her partner Erwin Bach in Basel on July 25, 2005. The pair married eight years later in 2013

In 2013, she became engaged to her long-time partner Erwin Bach, a German record producer and they married in Zurich, months after she gained her Swiss citizenship.

Tina Turner’s net worth has accumulated to approximately $250million (£191million), according to Celebrity Net Worth.

As reported in The Richest, her estimated sales from the Private Dancer album, which sold 20 million copies, was $23million (£17.5million) and the Private Dancer tour made Tina $7.1million (£5.4million).

Her Wildest Dreams tour made $100million (£76million), her Twenty Four Seven tour $80million (£61million) and her 50th Anniversary Tour made $85million (£65million). 

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