Tina Turner was a woman of many talents.
Following the news of the Queen of Rock and Roll’s death Wednesday, PEOPLE spoke with Wayne Lukas, their longtime tour stylist who opened up about what Turner was like behind the scenes.
Turner fans everywhere know that her hair is an important part of her look—and Lukas says that while she’s on tour, she’ll walk into her room and see “50 Tina Turner wigs hanging on a wall.” The best part about it? She dyed and sewed her own wigs.
“He said nobody did it well. Rock and roll like Betsy Ross,” Lukas tells PEOPLE privately. “She would sit on the edge of the bed and you would see her sewing her own wig with a needle and thread and scissors. It was a great time.”
Adds Lukas, “Or he’d take them back and add all that extraordinary beauty. He’s a star where those things weren’t created by a hairdresser. Those things were created by Tina.”
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As Turner’s tour stylist, Lukas says he was “meticulous” in his rehearsals and knew “exactly” what he liked: “He wanted the dresses to come just after the toe knuckle, not the fingertip – the middle between the knuckle and the bottom.”
“When you fold a dress, it’s supposed to go exactly in that knot. When you twist a coat, it would know you put it in that knot,” adds Lukas. “She knew exactly how the clothes changed that body so she could dance in them so she could move in them and so she would do her best.”
“I learned a lot from him,” says Lukas. “I thought I was the new turban who knew everything but he had already done everything, so Tina forced me to rediscover it, so I had to reinvent myself and it brought out the best in me.”
Lukas, who received the news that Turner died at the age of 83 after a long illness, says he was “leaning on the kitchen counter” and “starting to cry”.
“I don’t know why the tears were flowing so hard and slowly because I was prepared. It’s one thing to lose a legacy, but then it’s another thing to lose the best sister, friend, girlfriend, best friend in the whole world. Lukas,” and Tina, everyone she loved. It was for him,” he says.
The first thing he did was to pull out the box containing a present Turner had given him years ago.
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“When you go on tour with Tina, she gives you special gifts at the end of the tour. Each of the dancers and I gave us a beautiful 18-karat gold ring to wear on your thumb,” he says. “She gave everyone this thumb ring. If you look inside, it says ‘In memory of the future,’ and she puts it on your finger and tells you she loves you.”
After their last tour together, Lukas said, “I was getting up to leave and he said, ‘You don’t want the same rings that girls have. I have something else for you.’ He gave me this box, I opened it and he said, ‘Give it to me.’ He took my hand, he took my hand and slid into my wedding. [ring] finger. Inside the ring it says ‘Remember me’. I will never forget,” he says.