Bonnie Tyler

Gaynor Sullivan (née Hopkins; 8 June 1951 – 8 July 2026), known professionally as Bonnie Tyler, was a Welsh singer and songwriter.

Known for her distinctive husky voice, Tyler came to prominence with the release of her 1977 album The World Starts Tonight and its singles "Lost in France" and "More Than a Lover". Her 1977 single "It's a Heartache" reached number four on the UK Singles Chart and number three on the US Billboard Hot 100.

In the 1980s, Tyler ventured into rock music with songwriter and producer Jim Steinman. He wrote Tyler's biggest hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which sold over 13 million copies worldwide and was released as the lead single from her 1983 UK chart-topping album Faster Than the Speed of Night. Steinman also wrote Tyler's other major 1980s hit "Holding Out for a Hero". Her other successful singles during this period included "Here She Comes" from the 1984 soundtrack to Metropolis and "If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)", written by Desmond Child and produced by Steinman. She had success in mainland Europe during the 1990s with Dieter Bohlen, who wrote and produced her hit "Bitterblue". In 2003, Tyler re-recorded "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with singer Kareen Antonn; their bilingual duet, titled "Si demain... (Turn Around)", topped the French charts.

Tyler released Rocks and Honey in 2013, featuring the single "Believe in Me", which she performed while representing the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden. After reuniting with the producer David Mackay, she released Between the Earth and the Stars (2019) and The Best Is Yet to Come (2021).

Tyler's work earned her three Grammy Award nominations and three Brit Award nominations (including twice for British Female Solo Artist), among other accolades. In 2022, she was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music. Her singles "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "It's a Heartache" have estimated sales of over 6 million units each, and are among the best-selling singles of all time.

Early life

Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins on 8 June 1951 in Skewen, Neath, Wales. Her father, Glyndŵr Hopkins, was a coal miner and Second World War serviceman, and her mother, Elsie Hopkins (née Lewis), was a homemaker. She grew up in a four-bedroom council house with three sisters and two brothers, and was exposed to a variety of singers and genres through her siblings, including Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and the Beatles. Hopkins attended Rhydhir Comprehensive School in Neath, Wales, left at 16 with no qualifications, and began working in a grocery shop. She and her family were deeply religious Protestants. Her first public performance was in a chapel as a child, singing the Anglican hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful".

In April 1969, Hopkins was entered into a local talent competition by her aunt and came second to an accordionist. Inspired to pursue a singing career, she worked as a backing singer for Bobby Wayne & the Dixies, before forming her own band, Imagination. Around this time, she changed her name to Sherene Davis to avoid confusion with Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin.

Influences

Born into a musical family, Tyler grew up listening to a wide range of musical genres. One of Tyler's earliest musical memories was listening to her mother singing opera music in the family home. Tyler attended church until she was sixteen years old. Her first ever performance was singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful" in church. She was also exposed to the music of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and other 1960s bands due to her siblings' musical tastes. Frankie Miller was the first live act that Tyler saw, and she later recorded duets with him.

Tyler's two biggest influences from a young age were Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. She cited "River Deep – Mountain High" as being her all-time favourite song. Other artists that influenced Tyler in her youth include Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Meat Loaf, Joe Cocker, Dusty Springfieldand Tommy Steele. She also expressed admiration for contemporary artists such as Guns N' Roses, Anastacia, Toni Braxton, Duffy, and Eminem, and said she hoped to collaborate with Adele, whom she described as "a great song writer, singer and performer."

Vocal style

Tyler's music contains elements of country, rock, pop, blues and Celtic. Her voice was likened to Rod Stewart and Kim Carnes as a result of her vocal cord nodule operation in the 1970s, sometimes even being referred to as "the female Rod Stewart", and, after her collaborations with Jim Steinman, "the female Meat Loaf". Soon after her operation, when recording her second album, Natural Force, the studio band complimented Tyler's changed voice. Reviewers from AllMusic have described Tyler's voice as "inimitable", "wonderfully gritty", and an "effective instrument" for drawing notice to her first managers, Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe.

In a review of Rocks and Honey, OMH Media described Tyler's vocals as being "good for only one thing and that's belting out gravelly vocals," suggesting that she sounds like Johnny Cash in his later years when she "tries to restrain [her voice]." With reference to her modern voice, The Yorkshire Times wrote that Tyler's vocals have "still got what it takes to make you tingle." Jim Steinman told People magazine that he wrote "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as a "showpiece for [Tyler's] voice." AllMusic said that Tyler's voice "produced the perfect type of 'desperate lovelorn' effect to suit the romantic lyrics."

Songwriting

Though songwriting had never been a significant part of Tyler's career, she co-wrote a handful of B-Sides and other tracks. "Gonna Get Better", a B-Side to the 1980 Japanese single "Sayonara Tokyo", was written with her brother, Paul Hopkins.

In 2001, Tyler co-wrote four songs with Gary Pickford-Hopkins on his GPH album, and duetted with him on the track "Loving You Means Leaving You". Tyler was also involved in writing several tracks for her 2005 album Wings, including its singles "Louise" and "Celebrate".

Philanthropy

Tyler featured in three charity supergroups. In 1986, she joined the Anti-Heroin Project to record "It's a Live-In World". The proceeds were donated to the Phoenix House Charities who funded heroin recovery centres in the UK. In the following year, Tyler featured as a chorus vocalist in the British-American charity group Ferry Aid, who released a cover of "Let It Be" by the Beatles. Proceeds were donated to a charity supporting the victims of the Zeebrugge Disaster. The single sold over 500,000 copies in the UK where it topped the charts for three weeks. In 1990, Tyler joined Rock Against Repatriation to record a cover of "Sailing". It was a protest song in response to the repatriation of Vietnamese boat people who fled to Hong Kong. The single peaked at no. 89 on the UK Singles Chart.

From the 1990s, Tyler was a patron of the Bobath Children's Therapy Centre in Cardiff, Wales, who provide care for children with cerebral palsy. In 2013, she campaigned for Bobath to be recognised at the Pride of Britain Awards. Tyler was also an ambassador for the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales. In January 2005, Tyler performed at the Rock for Asia benefit concert in Ingolstadt, Germany, raising funds for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The event was recorded and released on DVD. In 2007, Tyler recorded "I Don't Know How to Love Him" for Over the Rainbow, a charity album conceptualised by Anneka Rice on the television show Challenge Anneka. The album reached no. 1 on the UK Compilation Chart, with proceeds going to the Association of Children's Hospices.

On 1 November 2009, Tyler performed as the headline act at the Pinktober Women in Rock concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In the following year, she co-headlined at a benefit concert alongside Leo Sayer raising funds for Variety, the Children's Charity, in New Zealand. In 2012, Tyler was named patron of the AAG animal charity association in Guia, Portugal. Tyler re-recorded "Holding Out for a Hero" for the 2013 Children in Need appeal. In 2014, she endorsed the BUAV's campaign to make it mandatory for animals in testing laboratories to be re-homed.

In 2020, Tyler contributed to a cover of "Don't Answer Me" by the Alan Parsons Project to raise funds for Bergamo, an Italian city that was deeply impacted by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal life

In July 1973, Tyler married Robert Sullivan, a property developer and 1972 Olympic judo competitor. They had no children; Tyler miscarried when she was aged 39.

From 1988, Tyler and her husband owned a five-bedroom home in Albufeira in the Algarve in southern Portugal. Tyler had recorded one of her albums there in the late 1970s, and the couple spent much of the year there. In 2005, Tyler was filmed in the Algarve for the Polish entertainment TV show Zacisze gwiazd [pl] (Stars' Retreat), which explored the houses of actors and musicians.

Tyler and Sullivan invested in property. As of a 1999 interview, they owned farmland in Portugal and New Zealand, 22 houses in Berkshire and London, and 65 stables offering horse-boarding services. In a 2013 interview, Tyler stated that the farm in New Zealand had been converted to a dairy farm 12 years after they purchased the land, and that she and Sullivan also owned a quarry.

Health and death

On 6 May 2026, Tyler underwent emergency surgery in Faro, Portugal, where she lived, to treat a perforated intestine, and was placed in an induced coma in the intensive care unit. When doctors attempted to bring her out of the coma, she suffered a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated. On 12 May, her spokesman said she remained seriously ill but stable, and that her doctors were optimistic about her making a full recovery. On 15 June, Tyler woke up from her medically induced coma, although she remained "very unwell". She died on 8 July, aged 75, from the illness for which she had been receiving treatment.