{"id":739215,"date":"2026-08-15T21:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T21:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739215\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T21:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T21:32:09","slug":"thousands-of-bonnie-tyler-fans-gather-to-pay-respects-as-coffin-brought-home-bonnie-tyler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/739215\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans gather to pay respects as coffin brought home | Bonnie Tyler"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Bonnie Tyler<\/a> fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects to the singer as her coffin was brought back to her former home.<\/p>\n

The singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan, died unexpectedly on 8 July in Portugal at the age of 75.<\/p>\n

Many fans stood along Newton Road in Mumbles, Swansea<\/a>, to watch the procession as her coffin was brought back. The coffin was draped in the Welsh flag and accompanied by a framed photograph of the singer.<\/p>\n

Fans pay their respects by placing flowers on the hearse carrying Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler as it travels along Newton Road to her home in Llwynderw, Mumbles, Wales. Photograph: Dimitris Legakis\/EPA<\/p>\n

Fans threw flowers on to the hearse, and the crowd erupted into applause and broke out into a rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.<\/p>\n

Mumbles was Tyler\u2019s part-time home, as she split her time between Algarve in Portugal and a large Victorian house in Blackpill, near Mumbles, overlooking Swansea Bay.<\/p>\n

Tyler became renowned globally for her pop music hits, including Total Eclipse of the Heart and I Need a Hero.<\/p>\n

Bonnie Tyler fans (left-right) Melanie Smith, Melissa Smith and Carys Edwards in the Mumbles, Swansea, ahead of paying their respects to the late singer and watching the procession as she is transported back to her former home. Photograph: Eleanor Storey\/PA<\/p>\n

Among those waiting to pay their respects to Tyler was Carys Edwards, 18, who said the singer was \u201can inspiration to everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n

She told PA Media: \u201cHer music touched a lot of people, especially me. I\u2019m quite surprised how many people came here today, but then not as well, because she was such an icon.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was always coming home and making sure that she came back to her fans in Wales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer songs really did touch a lot of people here in Wales, we loved her a lot. When we found out she passed away, it was such a heartbreak to all of us. We cried and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Welsh flag draped over the coffin of Bonnie Tyler. Photograph: Matthew Horwood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Michael Bone, 58, and his partner Alan Hawkins, 54, travelled from Derby to watch the procession.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it\u2019d be nice to pay our respects,\u201d said Bone. \u201cFor me personally, it\u2019s because in my teens, her music was quite prolific. For me, it was her most iconic period in the 1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others were reported to have travelled from as far as Austria to witness the procession of Tyler\u2019s coffin.<\/p>\n

Her other hits included It\u2019s a Heartache and If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man). She represented the UK in the 2013 Eurovision song contest in Malm\u00f6, Sweden, with the song Believe in Me, finishing in 19th place.<\/p>\n

A celebration of Tyler\u2019s life is set to take place at Swansea Minster (Church of St Mary\u2019s) on Monday 17 August. Only those with invitations will be allowed inside, but the service will be shown on a large screen in nearby St David\u2019s Square \u2013 and members of the public can pay their respects.<\/p>\n

Bonnie Tyler. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski\/PA<\/p>\n

After the service, Tyler\u2019s coffin will make a final journey through her home village of Skewen \u2013 followed by a private gathering strictly for family and friends.<\/p>\n

Tyler grew up in a council house in Skewen with five older siblings. \u201cI class myself as a working-class girl, and I\u2019ve never stopped working,\u201d she told the Guardian in 2013. \u201cI do an awful lot [of performances] because I feel other people would love to be offered what I\u2019m offered.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her memoir, she wrote fondly of Wales: \u201cI may have done some extraordinary things \u2026 but in so many ways, I\u2019m still that young girl from Wales, dancing around the piano with her family, and I always will be.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of her death, then prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Tyler was an \u201ciconic figure\u201d and \u201cone of Britain\u2019s greatest recording artists\u201d. Others who paid tribute to her included Catherine Zeta-Jones and Cliff Richard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-739215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}