Nicola Bryan
BBC Wales

It was Christmas Eve 2013 when me and my mates bumped into Bonnie Tyler at La Brasserie restaurant in Swansea.

Total Eclipse of the Heart has always been something of an anthem for us and so when we spotted her there was huge excitement.

Bonnie was so full of fun and seemed thrilled to be amongst fans, happily stopping by for a chat and a picture.

A while later one of my mates was speaking to a relative of Bonnie who said this picture was on Bonnie’s piano at home.

I know it sounds nuts but I recall seeing a photo of it, framed on top of her piano.

So for many years whenever Bonnie came up in conversation I’ve enjoyed saying – "well, there’s a picture of me on her piano".

What a legend.

Image source, Nicola Bryan

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Bonnie Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins and grew up on a council estate in Skewen, near Neath.

One of seven children, she lived in a four-bedroom house, with her grandparents across the road.

The family didn’t have much, but Tyler always had big dreams.

“When I was a kid, my best friend’s family had a car - my parents couldn’t afford one - and they’d take us out for a drive at the weekend,” she told the Times in 2019.

“We’d head to the Gower, singing songs at the top of our voices. On the way back, we’d always pass a lovely old house. I used to say, ‘I’d love to own that place'," she said.

“Then, in 1988, I was able to buy the one right behind it, overlooking the bay. It will always be special to me.”

Image source, Getty Images

Broadcaster and media personality Carol Vorderman, pictured, says she is "truly sad" to hear the news of Bonnie Tyler's death.

"I am a Welsh woman, and believe me in Wales Bonnie Tyler is regarded as a legend - particularly amongst women," Vorderman writes on Instagram.

"She was extraordinary. I met her a number of times. She was very real. She was always laughing, asking questions, always having a good time."

Tyler represented something special to Wales, adds Vorderman, and will be "very very sorely missed".

"My heart goes out to her family - she was very much a family woman, and all of her really good friends. A very sad day."

Image source, Getty Images

The singer's last show was at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire on 19 March earlier this year, describing it on her official Facebook page at the time as a "fantastic night", external.

She had been due to perform in Cardiff a few days later, on 21 March, but this concert was rescheduled to December.

After her hospitalisation, a spokesperson announced the cancellation or postponement of dates for the singer's planned summer tour - but hoped some could still take place later in the year.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Decades after the release of her biggest hits, Bonnie Tyler was chosen to represent the UK at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

Her song, the mournful country ballad Believe In Me.

Strangely, it wasn’t written for the contest: she’d actually recorded it a year earlier in Nashville. But when the BBC heard it, they asked if she’d hold it back and enter the competition.

She’d actually been approached about the possibility of entering Eurovision before, at the peak of her commercial success in 1983 - but declined the offer.

Speaking to the Telegraph, external, she explained what changed her mind.

"It’s a bit political but let’s be realistic, 120 million people watch the Eurovision, I’ve got a fantastic new album coming out, somebody at the BBC likes it… and I’m going to say no?"

Still, she flew over to Sweden with a bit of trepidation. “I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it,” she later told BBC Radio 2’s Ken Bruce. “But I had a lovely time. If you’re going for it, go for it.”

In the end, she couldn’t persuade anyone to believe in Believe In Me. It came 19th (out of 26), earning just 23 points. But Tyler put a brave face on her defeat.

"I'm sure a lot of people will be disappointed on my behalf but I have really enjoyed my Eurovision experience," she said. "I did the best that I could do with a great song. I don't feel down and I'm ready to party."

Family friend Owen Money tells the BBC that Bonnie "was one of those ladies who just loved life".

The musician and radio presenter says: "I've known her since before she was famous, in the late 60s when she was starting out in Swansea.

"She's like family really. I was up her house last summer and the first thing she did was open a bottle of champagne."

Speaking following her death, Money says: "I’ve been in disbelief, I can’t believe it. She was a massive fan of my show and I was a massive fan of hers.

"Not only were we friends but we were fans of each other. She was still huge in Europe, Germany, Holland, she was just so good. She's a Welsh icon."

Welsh First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth describes Bonnie Tyler as a "true icon" in a tribute on social media.

He says: “I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Bonnie Tyler.

“Wales has lost a true icon, whose music brought joy to so many.

“I extend my heartfelt condolences to her family, friends and fans across the world.”

Colin Paterson
Entertainment correspondent

Bonnie Tyler’s trademark raspy voice was caused by a very unrock ‘n’ roll reason – forgotten strawberries.

In the mid-1970s, around the time of her breakthrough hit Lost in France, she developed vocal nodules due to strain.

The medical advice was to have surgery, which she did.

Her recovery involved complete vocal rest. However, one day she was going to visit her brother in hospital and on the way, realised that she had forgotten her gift of some strawberries.

In her autobiography Straight from the Heart, she explained what happened next.

“I was so frustrated that I’d have to drive all the way back home, I let out an ‘Oh no!’ scream.”

Her consultant told her there had been permanent damage. But what could have ended her career, actually turned out to be a blessing.

Tyler was left with a new - more husky - voice, which she came to love. In particular the emotional depth it gave her vocal performances. She even joked that it made her sound like a female Rod Stewart.

Pop history - changed forever by one purchase of a punnet.

Anna Lewis
BBC Wales

Image source, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Bonnie Tyler hasn’t always been Bonnie.

Born Gaynor Hopkins, the Neath singer admitted she "never really liked the name" and decided to change it to Sherene Davies at her first chance.

"When I was in my band Bobby Wayne and the Dixies, I was called Sherene - that was my sister's first little girl's name, and I loved that name,” she previously told BBC Radio Wales.

But when she signed her first record deal, RCA Records suggested another change, believing Sherene "sounded like a belly dancer".

Bonnie said: "I got a broadsheet newspaper and I made an effort to write all the first names I came across on one list and all the surnames on another and I went through them both and came up with Bonnie Tyler.

"And it's been a brilliant name.”

Wales Secretary Jo Stevens has paid tribute to the singer following her death.

"So sad to hear of the death of Bonnie Tyler," she writes in a post on X.

"A Welsh music icon, Grammy and Brit award winner and the sound of my teenage years."

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Speaking of Total Eclipse of the Heart, the song passed a huge milestone earlier this year when it was streamed for the one billionth time on Spotify.

But the singer told BBC News she barely saw a penny from her biggest song.

“Oh it’s nothing, just about nothing,” she told BBC News.

But Spotify says it paid out $1.4m (£1m) in royalties for Tyler’s back catalogue last year. So what happened?

Part of the issue is that the song was solely written by Jim Steinman, so all of the publishing royalties will have gone to his estate.

The remaining money goes to the owner of the master recording – currently Sony Music – who would share a percentage with Tyler, based on the recording contract she’d signed in the 1980s.

Typically, however, contracts signed before the mainstream adoption of the internet pay very little for digital downloads and streams… ultimately leaving Tyler out of pocket.

Mark Savage
Music correspondent

Image source, Jakubaszek/Redferns

Bonnie Tyler’s best-known song was undoubtedly Total Eclipse of the Heart – an overblown rock opera that burns with an almost religious zeal.

It topped the charts in the US and the UK, as well as Ireland, Australia and Zimbabwe, and has been covered in both Spanish (Eclipse Total del Amor) and Italian (Eclissi del cuore). But it almost never happened.

In 1983, Tyler had suffered a string of flop singles. Her record label wanted her to go back to the country-rock sound of It’s a Heartache.

But, after seeing Meat Loaf performing Bat Out Of Hell on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test, she’d set her sights on working with his writer, Jim Steinman.

Steinman was sceptical until Tyler’s new manager sent him a cassette tape of her rock demos.

Intrigued, he asked to meet her in New York and they immediately hit it off.

“I thought she one of the most passionate voices I’d ever heard in rock’n’roll since Janis Joplin,” Steinman said in a 1983 interview. That same night, he played Total Eclipse of the Heart to Tyler, sitting at his piano, and offered her the song.

Here’s how Tyler described the moment in Fred Bronson's Billboard Book of Number One Hits: “When he plays, he practically knocks [the piano] through the floor. He's incredible!

"He won't give [the song] to you on tape. He has to tell you the big story and play it for you.”

It became the UK’s fifth best-selling single of 1983; and cemented Tyler’s place in rock history.

In May, Bonnie Tyler was rushed to a hospital in Faro, Portugal, for emergency intestinal surgery and placed in an induced coma to aid her recovery.

In an update last month, a spokesperson said she was out of a coma but remained very unwell in intensive care.

At the time, they said her condition was improving and doctors were "confident" she would recover - although progress was "slow".

They also cancelled or postponed dates for the singer's summer tour, but hoped some later in the year could go ahead.

A statement published on the singer's website reads:

"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.

"We will issue a further statement shortly but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy."

The singer, known for hits including Total Eclipse of the Heart, Holding Out for a Hero and It's a Heartache, has died at the age of 75.

This is a breaking news story, we'll bring you updates and reaction shortly.

Image source, PA Media