Singer P.P. Arnold claims she was raped by Ike Turner

5 July 2022

Singer P.P. Arnold has alleged she was raped by Ike Turner in the mid-1960s.

P.P. Arnold claims she was raped by Ike Turner.

Arnold, 75, performed as an Ikette with the Ike and Tina Turner Revenue, has opened up about the past in a new memoir called ‘Soul Survivor’ and in the book she claims Ike – who died in 2007 aged 76 – sexually assaulted her in a hotel room.

She told The Telegraph: “You know what? When I decided to write my book my inspiration was Maya Angelou. It’s like, if I’m going to write my book I’m going to tell the truth.”

Arnold added of the rape: “What can I say? It was awful. I despised Ike on that level, but I didn’t know how to express myself. I was told Tina wanted to get rid of me because Ike was after me. If I had run to Tina or called my parents, it would have meant I would have (had) to come home.”

The singer was reluctant to leave the band because she was stuck in a turbulent marriage, but in the book she reveals it was Rolling Stones star Sir Mick Jagger who eventually persuaded her to get out.

Arnold became romantically involved with both Mick and his then partner Marianne Faithfull, writing in the book: “Mick was in heaven but Marianne was more interested in me. I had always been a good kisser and so was she. I tried to let myself go but I was also uncomfortable … ultimately it was Mick that I was infatuated with, not her … “

She said of her relationship with the rocker: “I was very private. I never flaunted it in the press. I wasn’t a hustler. I never shouted, ‘Oh I’m seeing Mick Jagger!’ ‘He wrote Brown Sugar about me!’ It never bothered me who he wrote it about because he’s never said. I hope that Mick knows that (the memoir) is not a kiss-and-tell. I hope he understands that.”