Statue of Tina Turner unveiled near late singer’s hometown

A statue of the late singer Tina Turner was unveiled in Brownsville, Tennessee, recently, and some users online think it failed to capture her accurately.

Turner, who died in Switzerland in 2023 at the age of 83, grew up in nearby Nutbush, Tennessee, before leaving the area as a teenager, according to The Associated Press. The statue, part of an annual celebration of her life and legacy, was sculpted by Fred Ajanogha.

Mr. Ajanogha said he wanted to capture Turner’s flexibility on stage, her method of holding a microphone and her hairstyle which, he told the AP, was like the “mane of a lion.”

“It makes me feel glad that I can make people happy, and more, in visual form, it’s the only way we can immortalize who Tina Turner is. You don’t have to go to the library to read about her, you don’t have to watch movies, you see her in real life like this,” Mr. Ajanogha, who sculpted the piece in clay before it was forged in bronze, told local paper The Jackson Sun.

People online, however, took umbrage with Mr. Ajanogha’s rendition of the singer known for songs such as “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Proud Mary,” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”

“I think it was fantastic to honor Tina Turner. I just wish that the artist had done a better job on the statue,” commenter Larry Hill wrote in a Facebook post by Brownsville’s Tina Turner Museum.

Another user, Jacquelyn Hawkins, commented on a video of the unveiling posted by the Brownsville Haywood County Chamber of Commerce and wrote, “That statue should have been kicked down after the unveiling. That is a very poor replica of what is supposed to be The Iconic Tina Turner.”

On the same video, commenter Sherlene Love wrote, “Dang what was they thinking whoever did that needs to get their money back.”

On X, meanwhile, anonymous users @love_wza, @bluntspoken and @bithia_ had the same impression — that the statue looked less like Turner and more like a character from the cartoon “Beavis and Butthead.”

“Y’all made her look like Beavis & Butthead smh,” @love_wza wrote.