Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh pop-rock singer behind ’80s hits like “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” died on Wednesday. She was 75.
“Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for,” reads a statement shared on Tyler’s official website and Facebook page on Thursday. “We will issue a further statement shortly but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy.”
In May, Tyler was hospitalized in Faro, Portugal — where she had a residence — for emergency intestinal surgery and was eventually put in a medically-induced coma. She was set to embark on a tour before being hospitalized. Tyler woke up from her month-long coma in June, but remained “very unwell and in intensive care,” according to her Facebook page.
Born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, on June 8, 1951, Tyler was discovered by talent scout Roger Bell in Swansea and broke onto the music scene with her 1977 hit “Lost in France” and debut album “The World Starts Tonight.” After an operation to remove vocal cord nodules, her voice retained a distinctively raspy quality.
In the early 1980s, Tyler began working with producer Jim Steinman, who wrote “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Selling some 6 million copies, it became the fifth-highest selling single of 1983 in the U.K. and spent four weeks on top of the charts in the U.S., making her the first Welsh person to score a No. 1 hit in the country. Her popular 1984 song “Holding Out for a Hero,” co-written by Steinman, was featured on the “Footloose” movie soundtrack that same year, while her recording of “Here She Comes” was included on the soundtrack of Giorgio Moroder’s restoration of “Metropolis” in 1985. In her career, she earned three Grammy nominations, including best pop solo female vocal performance for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and female rock vocal performance for her 1983 album “Faster Than the Speed of Night” and “Here She Comes.”
In 2013, she competed for the U.K. in the Eurovision song contest with the song “Believe in Me” from her 16th album “Rocks and Honey.” She released her 18th and final album, “The Best Is Yet to Come,” in 2021, but had recently dropped a new single, titled “Only Love,” which she premiered at a London concert in March.
Tyler also wrote an autobiography detailing her 50-year career in the industry, titled “Straight From the Heart,” which came out in 2023. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music the same year.
She is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan, to whom she had been married since 1973.