Singer Bonnie Tyler has died “unexpectedly,” her family has said.
The 75-year-old, known for hits including “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Holding Out for a Hero,” was placed into an induced coma in May after having emergency intestinal surgery.
In a statement, the family said she passed “as a result of the illness that she was being treated for.”
“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,” the message, posted on Tyler’s official website on Thursday morning, said.
“We will issue a further statement shortly but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy.”
Tyler, born Gaynor Hopkins, first reported severe abdominal pain in April while staying at her second home in Portugal.
The Welsh singer, nominated for three Grammys in the 1980s, was rushed to an ER in the southern city of Faro after her health deteriorated, where doctors discovered her appendix had burst, prompting emergency surgery.
Liberto Mealha, an Algarve businessman and longtime friend of the singer, told Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manhã in May that Tyler first began feeling ill during a concert in London, where tests were inconclusive. “She decided to travel to the Algarve, where she began to feel severe abdominal pain,” Mealha said. “Two days later, she went to a private hospital, which urgently transferred her to the hospital in Faro because her appendix had burst and she needed emergency surgery.”
In May, she was placed into a medically induced coma following further complications from the operation. According to reports by local media, she then went into cardiac arrest when doctors initially tried to bring her out of the coma.
Last month, her reps said she was out of the coma but remained “very unwell and in intensive care.”
Her husband, Robert Sullivan, was by her side until the end. “He spends his days at the hospital and only comes home at night,” Mealha told the Portuguese newspaper.
Tyler had a humble upbringing and was brought up in public housing in a small village alongside her coalminer father, homemaker mother, and five siblings.
She left school with no qualifications and worked in a grocery store until her singing ability was spotted at a local talent show.
She broke through in 1977 with her hit “It’s A Heartache”, which reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Her biggest hit, “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in 1983 and earned her a Grammy nomination.
Tyler had no children. She miscarried at the age of 39.
