Tina Turner may become a Swiss citizen, give back U.S. passport

By Nardine Saad

Jan. 25, 2013 12 AM PT

Tina Turner wants to become a Swiss citizen, and love has everything to do with it.

If you’ve been wondering what the iconic diva has been up to lately, she’s been living in Kuesnacht, a Zurich suburb, since 1995.

A Swiss paper wrote Friday that the 73-year-old had been granted citizenship, according to the Associated Press. The Nutbush, Tenn.-born singer has passed a local civics test and interview.

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“I’m very happy in Switzerland and I feel at home here.... I cannot imagine a better place to live,” Turner said in Blick, a German newspaper.

The singer wanted to “clarify her situation,” Turner’s rep told the Swiss newspaper Zuerichsee-Zeitung.

“Tina Turner will therefore also give back her U.S. citizenship,” her rep said.

But the decision still needs to be approved by the Swiss state, or canton of Zurich, and federal authorities before the red passport is awarded.

Turner first went to Switzerland with German record executive Erwin Bach, her longtime music manager, and has been living with him in a lake house called Chateau Algonquin, ABC News reports

The mayor of Brownsville, Tenn., of which Nutbush is an unincorporated area, told FOX411 she was “surprised” when she learned of Turner’s decision.

“Tina Turner — as she has gotten worldwide fame — has never forgotten her roots,” Mayor Jo Matherne said.

“I think anytime a person, whether they’re world-renowned or the most meek and mild, makes the decision to change their citizenship we need to step back and think what causes that decision,” she added.

Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock, rose to fame as part of a music duo with husband Ike Turner. Their tumultuous relationship, which included domestic abuse allegations, launched her solo career in the 1970s and she kept her husband’s last name. She filed for divorce in 1974, and the 14-year marriage officially ended in 1978.

Shania Twain, Roger Moore, Phil Collins and Celine Dion all have homes in Switzerland too.

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