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Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh 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, Tyler broke onto the music scene with her hit “Lost in France” on her debut album “The World Starts Tonight,” released in 1977. 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 six 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. 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, and earned her a Grammy nomination.
In 2013, she competed for the U.K. in the Eurovision song contest with the song “Believe in Me” from “Rocks and Honey.” In 2021, she released “The Best Is Yet to Come,” her 18th album.
Tyler also released an autobiography detailing her 50-year career in the industry in 2023, titled “Straight From the Heart.”
She is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan, to whom she had been married since 1973.
