Bonnie Tyler dead: Singer dies at 75 in Portugal

Rise of a Welshwoman

Tyler's career began in the mid-1970s when a talent scout, who had actually come to Wales to meet a young male singer, heard her performing at a club and secured her a record deal. Under the stage name Bonnie Tyler, given to her by her label RCA, she released her debut album "The World Starts Tonight" in 1977, which yielded a first chart success in Europe with "Lost in France." A year later she scored her first global hit with "It's a Heartache."

The singer's characteristic raspy voice was the result of a vocal cord operation in the second half of the 1970s. Because she had not followed the medical advice to refrain from speaking for a while after the procedure, the rough timbre and slight hoarseness remained permanently – an effect that would later become her trademark.

The Years with Jim Steinman

In the early 1980s came the collaboration with the American composer and producer Jim Steinman, who had previously worked with Meat Loaf. Steinman wrote for Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart," among others – he had originally composed the song for Meat Loaf, who could not record it due to vocal problems – as well as "Holding Out for a Hero," which became part of the soundtrack to the dance film "Footloose" in 1984. Both songs developed into hymns of pop culture and were covered many times, including by Nicki French, Westlife, and the band DNCE.

The album "Faster Than the Speed of Night," Tyler's fifth studio album and the one that featured "Total Eclipse of the Heart," earned her Grammy nominations for best pop and rock vocalist; she was also nominated for "Here She Comes" from the film "Metropolis." Tyler was unable to repeat the great chart successes of the 1980s in the following decades, but remained active as a live performer.

In the 1990s she worked for a time with the German producer Dieter Bohlen, who wrote and produced the album "Bitterblue" with her, among others. In 2013 she represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden; with the song "Believe in Me," however, she only reached 19th place. In the same decade she also tried her hand at a country-flavored album in Nashville ("Rocks and Honey") and released the work "Between the Earth and the Stars" in 2019, featuring duets with Rod Stewart, Cliff Richard, and Francis Rossi of Status Quo; in the same year she performed at a Christmas concert series at the Vatican before Pope Francis.

Late Work and Comebacks

In 2021, "The Best Is Yet to Come" was released, her 18th and final studio album, which was well received by critics. In early 2025 she released the single "Yes I Can," but had to take a break from performing that same year due to knee surgery, from which she nevertheless returned and gave three concerts in Austria, among other dates. In 2026 she released further songs, including "One World One Home" for a documentary about homelessness. In total, her career encompassed more than 80 singles and 18 studio albums.

In her private life, Tyler had been with the British judoka and property developer Robert Sullivan since 1973, a cousin of the father of Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple was married for more than 50 years and lived alternately on the south coast of Wales and in the Algarve in Portugal. Children were not granted to the couple, in Tyler's own words.

Private Happiness in the Algarve

In 2022 she was awarded an MBE for her services to music as part of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II's 70th jubilee on the throne. In 2023, in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner, she spoke of an "absolutely wonderful atmosphere" at the concerts at the time. In the same year she recalled the ESC experience to the Guardian: "I was being interviewed every 15, 20 minutes, and when I walked out onstage behind the British flag, I thought the roof was going to come off!"

Her songs accompanied generations: "It's a Heartache" was sung by Cate Blanchett while peeling carrots in "Bandits" in 2001, "Old School" used the song in a wedding scene in 2003, and One Direction performed it on a British casting show in 2010. In 2020, Stereogum called "Total Eclipse of the Heart" an "extinction-level event rendered in musical form," and the music magazine honored it as "pop music as heart-pounding, chest-thumping, blood-gargling, heavens-falling passion explosion."

Down-to-Earth to the End

In her final years Tyler, who liked to call herself a "working-class girl," remained tirelessly hard-working. "If I read or hear that I'm already over 70, I always think they must be talking about someone else," she said in an interview. Asked about her lasting motivation, she answered, with reference to her mother: "My mother raised me that way." She also never grew tired of the old hits: "Ich liebe diese alten Hits immer noch," she told the KURIER. Performances were worthwhile for her even when they weren't perfect: "Ich absolviere viele schlimme Auftritte, weil ich denke, dass andere Menschen es lieben würden, das angeboten zu bekommen, was ich angeboten bekomme."

With the death of Bonnie Tyler, pop music has lost an exceptional artist who touched millions of people with her voice and her down-to-earth nature. "Die Leute erinnern sich an damals – es ist richtig schön nostalgisch," she once said about the lasting effect of her songs. Her hits, Tyler said, had become "zum Teil ihres Lebens" – a judgment shared after the singer's unexpected death on Thursday evening in Portugal by fans, companions, and colleagues.

Her manager and long-time producer David Mackay had most recently been working on new music with the Tyrolean songwriter and producer Patrick Schmiderer. About him Tyler once said: "Er hat junge Energie in diesen Song gepackt." The audience, Tyler continued, would "völlig durchdrehen" especially at "Holding Out for a Hero" – a sentence that, after her death, sounds like the legacy of a singer who stood on stage for more than half a century with a raspy voice and a grand gesture.

Planned Tour Canceled

Bonnie Tyler had been scheduled to appear on a major European tour announced for 2026, including on October 24. These concerts will no longer take place. The singer was 75 years old.

The family asked that their privacy be respected during this time of mourning. No information was initially available regarding a public memorial or commemorative event.