Bonnie Tyler is recovering in hospital after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in Portugal.
The 74-year-old Welsh icon – born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Neath – was admitted to Faro Hospital in the Algarve, where she has owned a home since 1988.
Reports suggest she had been experiencing severe abdominal pain before seeking medical help, and was taken in for urgent surgery to treat an intestinal perforation.
A spokesperson said the surgery had gone well. “We are very sorry to announce that Bonnie has been admitted to hospital in Faro, Portugal, where she has a home, for emergency intestinal surgery,” they said. “The surgery went well and she is now recuperating.”
The spokesperson added that family, friends and fans would be wishing her well. “We know that all of her family, friends, and fans will be concerned about this news and will be wishing her well for a full and swift recovery,” they said.
Tyler is currently in the intermediate care unit of the hospital’s emergency department, with her condition described as stable.
Born and raised in Skewen, Tyler now shares her time between her home in Mumbles and the Algarve.
Born into a coal mining family in 1951, she grew up in a council house in Skewen before being discovered by talent scout Roger Bell at a Swansea club in the mid-1970s.
She launched her recording career with Lost in France in 1976, but it was Total Eclipse of the Heart in 1983 that made her a global superstar – spending two weeks at number one in the UK and four weeks at the top of the US charts.
The song has since become one of the best-selling singles of all time, with worldwide sales in excess of six million copies – and last year it passed the one billion streams mark on Spotify.
Her distinctive husky voice – one of the most recognisable in pop history – was the result of a throat operation in the mid-1970s to remove vocal nodules. Defying doctors’ orders to rest her voice during recovery, she spoke anyway, and accidentally created her trademark sound.
Among her other major hits are It’s a Heartache, which reached number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, and Holding Out for a Hero from the 1984 film Footloose.
She represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013, finishing 19th with Believe in Me.
Three-times Grammy-nominated Tyler was appointed MBE in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to music and has been named a Freeman of Neath Port Talbot.
No further details have been released about Tyler’s expected recovery time or when she may be discharged from hospital.
