“With Tina Turner’s death, the world has lost an icon,” Swiss President Alain Berset tweeted Wednesday following the star’s death on the age of 83. He known as the singer, who lived in Switzerland since 1995, an “impressive woman who found a second home” within the nation.

On Thursday, roses and candles had been positioned outdoors the gates of Turner’s dwelling in Küsnacht on Lake Zurich’s Golden Coast. “You’re simply the best,” learn one handwritten tribute to the singer, a nod to considered one of her most well-known songs.

Turner was “a proud citizen of Küsnacht,” the municipality mentioned in a statement, including that she touched many along with her “warmth and modesty.” The assertion mentioned Turner had sponsored a rescue boat named “TINA” and donated Christmas lights.

“She pretty much became European,” British music journalist Lloyd Bradley mentioned in emailed feedback Thursday, including that this helped her sustain her success in Europe. “U.K. crowds at least seemed to look on her as ‘one of our own.’”

In an interview with CNN’s Larry King in 1997, Turner described why she had left her life within the United States behind. “Basically, Europe has been very supportive of my music,” she mentioned. “Private Dancer was the beginning of my success in England,” she mentioned of her fifth solo studio album, which was recorded in London and launched in 1984, ultimately going multiplatinum.

Tina Turner sang beyond her pain

When requested by King if Europe had been extra supportive of her than America, Turner replied, “Yes,” with a smile. “Yes, hugely.”

“But you’re a major star here; you’re a superstar in America,” King mentioned, earlier than Turner replied: “Not as big as Madonna. I’m as big as Madonna in Europe.”

Even when Turner was a part of a musical duo along with her abusive husband Ike, she discovered a distinct degree of appreciation in Europe. While most of Ike and Tina Turner’s hits stayed on the R&B circuit within the United States, their songs discovered mainstream success in England, “which has a long history of appreciating black American music styles,” The Washington Post previously reported. The Rolling Stones opened for Ike and Tina on their first British tour in 1965.

Turner’s time in England additionally performed an necessary position after she break up from Ike in 1976 and made a reputation for herself as a solo artist.

“It was a shrewd move on her part when, in the late 1970s as she couldn’t buy a hit in the U.S. and was pretty much relegated to cabaret, she took on Australian management who had strong connections in Europe,” Bradley mentioned.

“The live work she got there allowed her to escape the ‘nostalgia tag’ and reinvent herself with the help of Marsh & Ware, quintessential British/Euro electronic music wizards. … Interestingly this sound was big in the U.S. and allowed her to sell herself back to her homeland as a very modern rock star.”

Turner additionally credit British star David Bowie with making certain she was signed with Capitol Records. Bowie had instructed firm officers he was going to see his favourite singer, “so they all came along and voilà — there I was onstage. They signed me simply because of David,” she instructed The Post in a 1993 interview.

Turner additionally elaborated on how she discovered extra sustained success in Europe in an interview with “60 Minutes” in 1996. “What I find with my homeland is that nothing lasts very long,” Turner mentioned. “Europe is different.”

Turner instructed “60 Minutes” that many individuals outdoors Europe had been shocked when she defined she was a fair greater star in Europe than she was within the United States. “No one in America knows that. I mean, people are always shocked when I explain,” she mentioned.

With extra live performance tickets bought than another solo artist in music historical past, Turner carried out numerous instances throughout the continent from London to Paris, Berlin to Prague, for adoring followers. “She was a genuine female rock legend and … so few of them are European, even Europe adoptees like Tina and Chrissie Hynde,” Bradley mentioned.

Greg Rose, a British fan who loved the singer a lot he had a Tina Turner-themed thirtieth celebration, wrote on Facebook that the singer was “plastered across” his bed room partitions since he was an adolescent and that he had seen her over 70 instances in live performance.

Bruno Garcez, a Brazilian journalist based mostly in London, mentioned his fascination with Turner started when he was an adolescent. The 50-year-old mentioned he nonetheless finds her inspiring right now. “Her life story summarizes the very concept of resilience, strength and overcoming. It’s unbelievable what she went through,” he mentioned in an interview Thursday.

Beyond her profession success, Europe was additionally vital to Turner in one other approach — as that was the place she met her future husband, German music govt Erwin Bach. The two met in 1985 and had been collectively for nearly 40 years, marrying in 2013. They lived collectively in Germany, then Switzerland.

On social media, many hailed Turner’s choice to go away American soil and settle in Europe as an inspiration.

U.S.-born author Joy C. Mitchell, who relies in Europe, said Wednesday that Turner was “one of the first Black American women” she noticed transfer to Europe and discover “career success and love.” Turner “was, in certain ways, the blueprint,” Mitchell wrote. “I always envisioned running into her whenever I was in Switzerland and telling her thank you.”