Bonnie Tyler, the singer best known for her hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” has died. She was 75.
The Welsh singer, known for her raspy voice, also had big ‘70s and ‘80s hits with the songs “It’s a Heartache,” and “Holding Out for a Hero.”
A message posted on Tyler’s official website on Thursday, July 9, from her family and team stated they were “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.”
They added that a further statement would come in due course, while asking for privacy “to deal with this tragedy.”
In May, the star was placed in an induced coma after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in Portugal, and her spokesperson revealed last month that she was out of the coma but remained “very unwell” in intensive care.
Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, in 1951. She later picked Bonnie Tyler as her stage name. She was one of seven children, and her father had become disabled fighting in World War II.
“My mum was a wonderful mother,” Tyler, who was very close to her parents and siblings, told The Guardian in 2012. “I remember she said to me: ‘Believe in yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.’ I’m sure a lot of my success is due to her words of advice.”
In May, the star was placed in an induced coma after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in Portugal, and her spokesperson revealed last month that she was out of the coma but remained “very unwell” in intensive care.
Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, in 1951. She later picked Bonnie Tyler as her stage name. She was one of seven children, and her father had become disabled fighting in World War II.
“My mum was a wonderful mother,” Tyler, who was very close to her parents and siblings, told The Guardian in 2012. “I remember she said to me: ‘Believe in yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.’ I’m sure a lot of my success is due to her words of advice.”
Tyler’s first successful single was 1977’s “It’s a Heartache,” from her second album Natural Force, which she released on RCA Records. The track reached No. 3 in the United States and No. 4 in the United Kingdom, and it topped the charts in Australia and Canada.
Tyler was not a fan of the song. “I was a bit cheesed off,” she told PEOPLE in 1983 of the management team that held her under contract and wrote most of her material at time time. “I didn’t even like it as I was recording it.” The song also put her in more of a country space, instead of rock. During the last 18 months of her contract with her management, she stopped performing while waiting for the contract to run out.
Tyler’s career took what she called “a bit of a nosedive” until 1983, when, with a new manager and a new label, she released “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The song was written by Jim Steinman, who also wrote power-ballad hits for Meatloaf, Air Supply and Celine Dion.
“I always thought she had a great voice,” Steinman, who died in 2021, told PEOPLE back in 1983. “She reminds me of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty, probably my favorite male rock ‘n’ roll singer. Her voice isn’t pure or smooth. It sounds ravaged, like it’s been through a lot. It’s what rock ‘n’ roll is all about.”
When Tyler met Steinman in 1982, he played some of his favorite songs to see if they had the same musical sensibility.
Pleased, he agreed to work with her. Steinman had originally started writing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for a Nosferatu musical, but he shaped the song to “show off” Tyler’s voice.
“I never thought it had a prayer as a single,” he told PEOPLE. “It was an aria to me, a Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion. I wrote it to be a showpiece for her voice.”
“I poured my heart out singing it,” Tyler told The Guardian in 2023, adding, “Recently, a friend unearthed a letter I’d written to her from New York back then. It says: ‘I recorded an incredible song today. The trouble is, it’s so long, I don’t think anybody will ever play it.’ ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ had to be shortened from seven to four minutes, but everybody loved it so much they played the full album version anyway.”
The song became a massive success, hitting No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. It also boosted her 1983 album Faster Than the Speed of Night, which reached No. 1 in the U.K. and No. 4 in the U.S.
The song would remain her most enduring hit — and enjoy a burst in popularity whenever natural eclipses returned. “Every time the eclipse comes, everyone all over the world, they play ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart,’ and I never get tired of singing it,” Tyler told Good Morning America in 2024 when a wide swath of the U.S. could see a full solar eclipse.
A year later, Tyler had another hit with “Holding Out for a Hero,” which was featured in the film Footloose. It reached No. 34 in the U.S. and No. 2 in the U.K. “I like singing them. They’re what gets the crowd going,” she told The Guardian in 2013 of her two biggest ‘80s hits, crediting Steinman’s songwriting for their enduring popularity.
Tyler’s career in the United States dropped off in the following years, but she continued to thrive abroad. “A lot of people may have thought I’d given it up, but I’ve been working all the time,” she told PEOPLE in 1996.
“All over Europe, it’s great for me.” In 2013, she represented Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Overall, Tyler released 18 albums and received three Grammy nominations. In 2022, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music.
Tyler and her husband never had children, and she was open about having suffered a pregnancy loss in 1992. “I think what you don’t have, you don’t miss,” she told PEOPLE in 1996 about not having children. “It just wasn’t for me, you know. I’ve got a great life, and I’m far from packing it in.”
Chasing fame never interested her. “It’s no good singing if you just want to be a pop star. You’ve got to work at it and do it for the love for it, not because you think it will make you famous,” Tyler told The Guardian in 2009. “I never did that. I never thought about that. . . . I sang for seven years before getting a record deal, and I was already loving what I was doing. I just got lucky and got discovered.”
Tyler is survived by her husband.