Abstract: A method of bending back a tire component, comprising a step in which the diameters of a pair of cylindrical bodies, whose diameters can be increased and decreased, are decreased to a minimum value to hold beads by the bodies, respectively, and the beads are set in prescribed positions on the component wound on a forming drum; a step in which the diameters of the bodies are increased to an intermediate value and the bladders of the drum are inflated so that the component is pinch-held at both side edges thereof by the bladders and the bodies; a step in which the bodies are moved to positions located nearly outside the beads in the radial directions of the bodies, so that both the side edges of the component are moved outward in the radial directions of the bodies as the component remains in pressure contact with the beads near the side edges; and a step in which the diameters of the bodies are increased to a maximum value and the bodies are thereafter moved toward the longitudinally central portion of the dru