(NOTICE: Lana Clarkson’s body image may hurt your susceptibility)
The iconic Ronettes singer took to social media on Sunday to remember Spector -- who was convicted of second-degree murder in 2009 -- as a "brilliant producer, but a lousy husband."
Phil was convicted in the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson and died in prison last year. But before he was tried for the grisly crime, the relationship between the producer and his teenage protégé was marred by brutality, sick control and twisted love. And it ultimately wound up becoming a chilling harbinger of the violence to come.
Ronnie, the bad-girl vocalist of ’60s rock group the Ronettes, died Wednesday at 78 following a brief battle with cancer. But in the years preceding her death, the musician was open about her traumatic relationship with Phil, who first signed her band in 1963.
"It's a sad day for music and a sad day for me," Ronnie, 77, wrote on Instagram at thath time. "When I was working with Phil Spector, watching him create in the recording studio, I knew I was working with the very best. He was in complete control, directing everyone. 
Phil and Ronnie married in 1968 and divorced six years later. During their tumultuous marriage, Ronnie was physically and mentally abused by the producer, as documented in her 1990 memoir, Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness, or My Life as a Fabulous Ronette.
"As I said many times while he was alive, he was a brilliant producer, but a lousy husband," she wrote. "Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged."
In Ronnie’s 1990 memoir “Be My Baby: How I Survived Mascara, Miniskirts, and Madness,” she wrote that, while she admired her ex-husband’s musical genius, he was vindictive, controlling and violent.
In the book, she also mentions that he actually kept a gold coffin in their basement and told her he would kill her if she tried to leave him.
“I can only say that when I left in the early ’70s, I knew that if I didn’t leave at that time, I was going to die there,” she wrote.
The book further details how Phil kept her locked away in his California mansion, where he subjected her to harsh psychological abuse. In 1972, with the help of her mother, she made a run for it, barefoot, and barely escaped with her life.
Ronnie told People in 2018 about her mom’s aid and her ordeal: “She said, ‘I’m your mother and I’m telling you, we gotta get out of here. Or you, my little girl, are going to be gone.’”
