Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh singer whose gravelly voice powered "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to the top of charts worldwide, has died at age 75. Her family confirmed the news Thursday, saying she passed away unexpectedly Wednesday night in a hospital in Portugal, where she had been receiving treatment.
The death caps a two-month health battle JubileeCast readers have followed closely. Tyler was rushed to a hospital in Faro, Portugal in early May for emergency surgery after a perforated intestine, then placed in a medically induced coma. She briefly went into cardiac arrest during efforts to revive her, woke from the coma in mid-June, and had remained in intensive care since, with her family describing her recovery as "hopeful" but slow just weeks ago.
Tyler, born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, broke through internationally in 1983 with "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which topped charts on both sides of the Atlantic and made her the first Welsh artist to score a U.S. No. 1. She followed it with "Holding Out for a Hero" in 1984 and represented the United Kingdom at Eurovision in 2013. In 2023, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music.
Tyler grew up attending chapel multiple times a week as a child in Wales, and her faith remained part of her story through the decades that followed - in 2019, she closed out the year performing at a Vatican Christmas concert before Pope Francis. As her family previously put it during her hospitalization, "her faith has long been an anchor in her life."
She is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan, whom she married in 1973.
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