Thousands line streets to farewell singer Bonnie Tyler
Hundreds of fans lined the streets of a seaside Welsh village on Saturday to bid farewell to late singer Bonnie Tyler as her coffin was brought home.
The Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star, beloved worldwide for her 1983 chart-topping power ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart, died last month in a hospital in Portugal. She was 75.
Hundreds of fans lined the streets of a seaside Welsh village on Saturday to bid farewell to late singer Bonnie Tyler. Alastair Grant
Tyler was hospitalised in May in Faro, where she had a home, for emergency intestinal surgery.
Locals and fans from around the United Kingdom and beyond took to the streets of Mumbles, near the city of Swansea, to see the hearse, which carried her coffin, draped in a Welsh flag.
Dozens waited outside the singer’s former home or left floral tributes there.
“She was always coming home and making sure that she came back to her fans in Wales,” said Carys Edwards, 18.
“Her songs really did touch a lot of people here in Wales; we loved her a lot.”
Tyler was a coal miner’s daughter who lived in public housing with an outside toilet in Skewen, Wales, about 11 kilometres outside Swansea.
She grew up with three sisters and two brothers.
The singer earned three Grammy nods and in 2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in 19th.
Bonnie Tyler died last month. Alastair Grant
She was honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2022 for her services to music by Queen Elizabeth II, thanks mainly to Total Eclipse of the Heart.
The ballad shot to the top of the charts in Britain and the United States and has had more than 1 billion streams, boosted by real eclipses in 2017, 2024 and most recently during this week’s solar eclipse.
The gothic music video was filmed in a former asylum in Surrey, England and directed by Australian Russell Mulcahy.
The singer was known best for her chart-topping power ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart. David Redfern
The song, which spent six weeks at No.1 on the ARIA charts, also had the honour of being the first to top the Australian Recording Industry Association’s (ARIA) newly created “Countdown chart” in July 1983.
The singer’s death was announced last month by her team.
They said: “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,” a message on her website and Facebook page told fans.
Tyler earned three Grammy nods and in 2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest Alastair Grant
The news of her death crashed her official website.
Welsh actress Catherine Zeta Jones, who had Tyler perform at her wedding to Michael Douglas, shared a photo of the pair together after her death and revealed a family connection in her tribute.
“Bonnie was married to my cousin and has been such a part of my life,” she said.
Sir Rod Stewart called Tyler “a good pal [and] a true soul stirrer” in a social media tribute.
“We shared similar styles of vocalising ... I sing It’s A Heartache every night on tour,” he wrote of her 1977 hit, which he covered in 2006.
Tyler, who was born Gaynor Hopkins, was also famous for the ’80s hit Holding out for a Hero from the 1984 Footloose soundtrack.
The hearse was draped with a Welsh flag. Alastair Grant
Tyler is survived by her husband, Robert Sullivan, 82, a property developer and former Olympic judo competitor who she married in 1973.
The couple met at a Swansea nightclub he managed and she performed at in 1970.
– with Associated Press
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