Bonnie Tyler, the legendary Welsh singer behind hits including “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero”, has died aged 75.
The news was announced by her family, who on Thursday (9 July) said she had “unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for”.
Tyler, who lived in Faro, Portugal, was originally rushed to hospital for an undisclosed illness on 30 April, and reports emerged that the singer had been placed in an induced coma following emergency intestinal surgery. Shortly afterwards, her team said: “Although her condition is improving, it is a slow process. Her doctors remain confident that she will make a good recovery, but it is going to take time.”
She was scheduled to perform on 22 May at Malta’s SummerLUST music festival and had tour dates planned in Germany, Hungary, Scotland and Turkey.
Known for her signature husky voice, Tyler was best known for the 1983 power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and 1984’s bombastic anthem “Holding Out for a Hero”, which was recorded for the Footloose film soundtrack.
With 18 studio albums released throughout her career, Tyler became one of Wales’s most successful musical exports, topping the UK singles chart in 1983 with “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.
Born Gaynor Hopkins to Glyndwr Hopkins, a coal miner and Second World War serviceman, and Elsie Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, in 1951, Tyler was entered into a local talent competition as a teenager by her aunt, and was inspired to pursue a career in singing.
Tyler found work as a backing singer for various bands, and at first changed her stage name to Sherene Davis to avoid being confused with the Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin.
She was scouted in 1975 and signed a record deal with RCA, who recommended she change her name again. She found her moniker, Bonnie Tyler, while searching through newspapers for inspiration.
After her first hit, “Lost in France”, in 1976, Tyler developed vocal cord nodules and underwent surgery. She didn’t know if she would sing again, but when she next performed, she realised her voice had changed. “I sounded like a female Rod Stewart,” she said after discovering her new gravelly tones.
The following year, she had her first hit in the US with “It’s a Heartache”. The song became one of her most successful singles, peaking at No 4 in the UK and in third place on the Billboard Hot 100. The success saw her booked as Tom Jones’s support act for several nights of his US tour in Los Angeles.
Tyler previously spoke of her insecurity about her voice, telling The Times in 2025 that she had in the past been “very nervous” about talking between songs, because of her Welsh accent.
“I had some elocution lessons, but now I’m delighted that I’ve kept my accent and that Tom Jones did, too,” she said.
Natural Force, her second studio album, released in 1978, sold more than half a million copies and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Tyler switched from RCA to CBS/Columbia in 1982 and released “Total Eclipse of the Heart” the following year, with the love song becoming one of her most popular singles of all time with more than 6 million sales.
At the time of recording the epic track, Tyler told a friend: “I recorded an incredible song today. The trouble is, it’s so long, I don’t think anybody will ever play it.” The seven-minute song was shortened to four for radio, and it became a major hit and a go-to at karaoke nights. She later said she thought the song was about “someone who wants to love so badly she’s lying there in complete darkness”.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2023, Tyler revealed the story behind the song. She told the paper that when she had wanted to shift from country rock to rock, she’d hoped to work with Jim Steinman, who had written songs for Meat Loaf.
Steinman showed “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to Tyler, and she recalled: “I understood immediately what an incredible song it was. He told me he had started writing the song for a prospective musical version of Nosferatu years before, but never finished it.
“Around the time we were recording, Meat Loaf had lost his voice, and after it was a hit, he always used to say: ‘Dang. That song should have been mine!’ I poured my heart out singing it.”
Her fifth studio album, Faster Than the Speed of Night, debuted at No 1 on the UK albums chart and sold more than 1 million copies in the United States.
Tyler found overwhelming success in mainland Europe in the Nineties. Her 1991 album Bitterblue wasn’t released in the UK or the US, but had commercial success in Austria and Norway and achieved platinum status in the latter. Subsequent records released in the Noughties had major success in France.
In 2013, Tyler released the album Rocks and Honey, which featured the single “Believe in Me”, a song she chose to represent the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden. She finished in 19th place with 23 points.
Afterwards, she insisted she was not disappointed, saying: “I did the best that I could do with a great song. I don’t feel down and I’m ready to party.”
Over the course of her career, the singer’s work earned her three Grammy Award nominations and three Brit Award nominations. She was awarded an MBE in 2023.
Her final studio album was The Best Is Yet to Come, which was released in 2021.
Tyler married her husband, Olympian judo athlete Robert Sullivan, in July 1973, after she sang at a nightclub in Chelsea, London, where he was a manager. The pair lived together in their homes in Swansea, Wales and Portugal.
In the final decades of her career, Tyler spent significant time touring the world, performing her hits.
“People ask me if I get tired singing the old songs, but why wouldn’t I love singing something like ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart?’” she told The Times. “As soon as I start one of those numbers, the whole audience sings it back to me – it’s magic.”
She added that touring was what kept her going. “I consider myself a working-class girl and I’ve never stopped working,” she said.
“Moving my parents from the council house where I was brought up to a cottage in [Welsh coastal village] Mumbles is the thing I’m most proud of, but it does feel like an achievement to still be wanted by audiences at my age.”
