Bonnie Tyler, who topped the charts with epic 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' has died at 75

By — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press Mark Kennedy, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/bonnie-tyler-who-topped-the-charts-with-epic-total-eclipse-of-the-heart-has-died-at-75 Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Bonnie Tyler, who topped the charts with epic 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' has died at 75 Arts Jul 9, 2026 10:13 AM EDT Bonnie Tyler, the gravelly voiced, Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star whose 1983 chart-topping power ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart" enchanted succeeding generations with its bombastic charms during solar and lunar eclipses, has died. She was 75. Tyler died unexpectedly in a hospital in Portugal where she was being treated for an illness, her family said Thursday in a statement on her website. She was hospitalized in May in Faro, where she had a home, for emergency intestinal surgery. She had been placed in an induced coma for a period but was reportedly improving last month and expected to make a good recovery. "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," her family said. Tyler earned three Grammy nods and in 2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in 19th. She was honored 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," which has had more than 1 billion streams, boosted by real eclipses in 2017 and 2024. The song spent four weeks at No. 1, and when Stereogum reevaluated it in 2020, the music outlet declared it an "extinction-level event rendered in musical form." "It's pop music as heart-pounding, chest-thumping, blood-gargling, heavens-falling passion explosion. It's sheer spectacle. It's fireworks and lasers and lightning and thunder. It soars and swoops and barrel-rolls," the site said. The song has never really gone away: it was covered by the English singer Nicki French in 1995, and the band Westlife in 2006. Cate Blanchett sang it while hitting Billy Bob Thornton with her car in 2001's "Bandits," it appeared in a wedding scene in 2003's "Old School" and One Direction sang it in 2010 on a U.K. version of "The X Factor." Early life Tyler was born — as Gaynor Hopkins — a coal miner's daughter in public housing with an outside toilet in Skewen, Wales, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) outside Swansea. She grew up with three sisters and two brothers. She adored the Beatles and her first album was "A Hard Day's Night." The first song she bought, at 13, was "Hippy Hippy Shake" by the Swinging Blue Jeans and she watched "Top of the Pops" religiously, according to her memoir, "Straight From the Heart." She would record "Top of the Pops" on a reel-to-reel two-track recorder and write down the lyrics of songs she loved. Her favorites were by Janis Joplin, Nina Si