A three-metre statue of rock’n’roll queen Tina Turner has been unveiled in the rural Tennessee community where she grew up – to a divisive reaction.

The statue was revealed on Saturday (local time) in a ceremony at a park in Brownsville, a city of about 9000 people, which is near Nutbush, the community where Turner went to school as a child.

The statue shows Turner with her signature wild hairdo and holding a microphone, as if she was singing on stage.

It was designed by sculptor Fred Ajanogha, who said he tried to capture her flexibility of movement on stage, how she held the microphone with her index finger extended, and her hair style, which he compared to the “mane of a lion”.

But the reaction online has been less than kind.

“The wig y’all put on that Tina Turner statue will never be forgiven,” wrote one X user.

Another wrote: “I hope she haunt them.”

“They really tried it! That looks nothing like Tina Turner. smh,” wrote a third, using the acronym for “shaking my head”.

On Facebook, meanwhile, Jazman Bowles wrote: “Dear Brownsville Tennessee sculpture approval department!!!! Whoever approved this, need to be fired!! THE END … Anna Mae Bullock/Tina Turner is going to visit you in your sleep.”

Turner, who was born Anna Mae Bullock, died on May 24, 2023, at age 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland.

Her Grammy-winning career included the hit songs Nutbush City Limits, Proud Mary, Private Dancer, and We Don’t Need Another Hero, from the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Her movie credits also include Tommy and Last Action Hero.

Turner teamed with husband Ike Turner for hit records and live shows in the 1960s and ’70s. She survived her troubled marriage to succeed in middle age with the chart-topping What’s Love Got To Do With It, released in 1984.

The unveiling was part of the 10th-annual Tina Turner Heritage Days, a celebration of her life growing up in rural Tennessee, before she moved away as a teenager. The statue was sculpted in clay and cast in bronze, and it took about a year to complete.

About 50 donors gave money for the statue, including Ford, which donated $US150,000 ($A229,358).

The statue stands near a museum honouring Turner at the the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Centre in Brownsville.

The museum opened in 2014 inside the renovated Flagg Grove School, a one-room building where Turner attended classes in Nutbush. The school closed in the 1960s and was used as a barn before the dilapidated building was moved from Nutbush to Brownsville.

-with AAP