Bonnie Tyler, the gravel-voiced star who sang her way into music history
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- Bonnie Tyler died at 75; born Gaynor Hopkins in a Neath council house, she was discovered by talent scout Roger Bell in a Swansea club and released her debut single "Lost in France" in 1977.
- Her 1983 ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart," written by Jim Steinman, reached UK number one for two weeks and US number one for four weeks; it crossed 1 billion Spotify streams this year and has surpassed 1.3 billion YouTube views.
- Tyler earned three Grammy nominations, represented the UK at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, and received an MBE from Prince William in 2023 for services to music.
- In May 2025, Tyler was placed in an induced coma after emergency intestinal surgery in Portugal; her spokesperson confirmed last month she was out of the coma but remained "very unwell and in intensive care."
- Tyler and husband Robert Sullivan reportedly own 22 homes worldwide, splitting time between Portugal and Mumbles, Swansea; she never had children, telling BBC Sounds she suffered a miscarriage at 40 after delaying for her career ("next year, next year").
- The singer who picked her stage name from a newspaper's columns released a new single "Yes I Can" this year and published her autobiography "Straight from the Heart" in 2023.
Why it matters: Tyler scored one of the most-streamed songs in history — "Total Eclipse of the Heart" crossed 1 billion Spotify plays in the same year she lay critically ill in a Portuguese ICU — a poignant bookend to a 50-year career that lifted her from a Welsh council house to global stardom. Three Grammy nods, an MBE, and a Eurovision appearance cement her cultural footprint in an era when the power ballad has largely vanished from the charts.
