{"id":572986,"date":"2026-08-18T18:52:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572986\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:52:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:52:22","slug":"crowds-turn-out-for-total-eclipse-singer-bonnie-tylers-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572986\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowds turn out for \u2018Total Eclipse\u2019 singer Bonnie Tyler\u2019s funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s A Heartache and another of her hits, If I Sing You A Love Song, were played as pallbearers carried the casket into the minster.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a Welsh icon,\u201d 75-year-old retiree Bette Richards told AFP. \u201cShe was a beautiful person. She never changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThisThis video grab taken from an AFPTV video shows mourners and fans gathered outside St. Mary’s Church during a “celebration of life” ceremony for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler in Swansea, Wales. Photo \/ Lidia Pedro, AFPTV, AFP<\/p>\n

The funeral also featured Simon & Garfunkel\u2019s Bridge Over Troubled Water performed by a male voice choir.<\/p>\n

Another Swansea resident, John Edwards, 70, paid tribute to a star who was also very much \u201can ordinary person\u201d and \u201cone of us\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI feel proud … Everybody loves her. It is a big loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyler died in hospital in Faro, in southern Portugal, on July 8.<\/p>\n

In a eulogy, Tyler\u2019s long-time tour manager Matt Davis remembered a star who could \u201ccommand any stage\u201d and led a \u201cbig and well-lived\u201d life.<\/p>\n

Tyler\u2019s death came after she was placed in an induced coma to aid her recovery after emergency surgery in May.<\/p>\n

The Grammy-nominated singer, whose real name was Gaynor Hopkins, was born and raised in a traditional coal-mining village northwest of Swansea.<\/p>\n

In recent years, she had split her time between Wales and Portugal, where she had a holiday home.<\/p>\n

She shot to fame in the 1970s with hits including Lost In France and It\u2019s A Heartache.<\/p>\n

\"WelshWelsh singer Bonnie Tyler, best known for her hit love song Total Eclipse Of The Heart, died in Portugal in July 2026 at the age of 75. Photo \/ Lidia Pedro, AFPTV, AFP<\/p>\n

Total Eclipse Of The Heart later topped the charts in both Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n

A male voice choir sang a mournful, slow version of the song as her funeral drew to a close.<\/p>\n

Tyler also hit the charts with Holding Out For A Hero in 1984, which featured on the soundtrack to the huge US box office success Footloose.<\/p>\n

At the time she was taken ill, she had been about to start a European tour in Malta to mark 50 years since the release of Lost In France, which was her breakthrough hit in 1976.<\/p>\n

– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s A Heartache and another of her hits, If I Sing You A Love Song, were played as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33846,200503,8530,12897,167898,26636,5676,156,9517,2082,26524,126806,24176,296,302,16572,9878,133272,111,139,69,3111,384,4625,42591,8628,5436,3940,664,24465,257411,135157,102],"class_list":["post-572986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-along","tag-bonnie","tag-carried","tag-church","tag-coffin","tag-crowds","tag-eclipse","tag-entertainment","tag-fans","tag-for","tag-funeral","tag-heartache","tag-hundreds","tag-into","tag-its","tag-joined","tag-monday","tag-mourners","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-out","tag-people","tag-singer","tag-singing","tag-song","tag-stars","tag-total","tag-turn","tag-tyler","tag-tylers","tag-welsh","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}