Bonnie Tyler, 75, Passes Away in Portugal: Her Final Days, Her Last Public Admission & a Secret in Her Marriage — Photos

The husky-voiced singer behind one of the most streamed power ballads in history has died at 75, and her passing has pulled the curtain back on a marriage that was never quite what fans believed it to be.

Bonnie Tyler, born Gaynor Hopkins, passed away this week in a hospital in Portugal after months of treatment that began with an emergency surgery in May 2026.

Her husband of over five decades, Robert Sullivan, stood beside her through it all, even though their marriage once survived a scandal and went through a heartbreak the couple rarely spoke of.

But then again, she may have been more mysterious than people realize because barely anyone knew what she confessed earlier this year.

The Hospital Stay That Turned Into Her Final Days

Tyler’s health crisis began on May 6, 2026, when her official page announced she had been admitted to a hospital in Faro, Portugal, where she kept a home, for emergency intestinal surgery.

The statement noted the procedure “went well” and that she was “recuperating,” while asking fans for patience during her recovery.

Two days later, on May 8, an update followed, revealing that doctors had placed Tyler into a medically induced coma to aid her recovery. Her team thanked fans for the “incredible outpouring of love and well wishes,” while asking for privacy “at this difficult time.”

By May 12, Tyler remained “seriously ill but stable in hospital in Faro,” according to a third statement, with doctors said to be “still positive that she will make a full recovery.”

Her family used the same post to push back publicly on outside speculation, writing that they were “very disappointed at the many lurid and untrue rumours now circulating in the media” and clarifying that a man named Liberto Mealha “does not represent them in any way whatsoever and is not in contact with them regarding Bonnie.”

Additionally, the statement asked media outlets “to cease to speculate or publish wild rumours, which simply serve to upset her family, friends, and many fans.”

For a while, there were no more updates, but all hope ended on July 9 when Tyler’s family shared a final announcement.

“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 post read. Her death is being described by many as a “tragedy.”

The Surprising Confession In Her Last Public Appearance

Tyler had shot to international fame in the 1980s with “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which topped the charts in both the UK and the US, and her instantly recognizable husky voice carried her through decades of hits including “Holding Out for a Hero,” “It’s a Heartache,” and “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man).”

It was in February 2026 that Tyler made what would become her last television appearance, sitting down with Lorraine Kelly on the presenter’s self-titled ITV show as she prepared for a European tour scheduled for later this year.

Kelly pointed out during the interview that “Total Eclipse of the Heart” had accumulated a billion streams on Spotify, and suggested the singer could comfortably retire on what the record alone had earned her.

Tyler’s response corrected the assumption on the spot. “But I didn’t write the song! I’m just a singer, you know, so I didn’t write that song,” she said.

The singer went on to explain that composer Jim Steinman, who penned and produced the track, had collected the royalties throughout his life, and that they now pass to his family since his own death.

The revelation didn’t dim her feelings for the song itself. “The first time I heard it, shivers up my spine,” Tyler admitted. “I couldn’t believe [Steinman] was giving me this song to sing. I wanted desperately to work with him.”

Why She and Robert Sullivan Never Had Children

Tyler grew up in Skewen, a small village outside Swansea, and in her later years split her time between homes in Wales and Faro, Portugal, with Sullivan. The pair met while Tyler was singing in Swansea nightclubs, where Sullivan worked as a club manager, long before his career in property development took off, and they married in 1973.

“I think the secret to our success is that we met before I was famous,” Tyler once said, according to the Times. She went on to explain that the couple’s lack of children came down to timing rather than choice.

“We don’t have children because we left it too late to stop taking precautions, and then I had a miscarriage when I was 40,” she said. “I was unlucky but I love all my nieces and nephews. Our house in Mumbles is like Paddington station because everyone wants to come and visit Auntie Gaynor.”

She had touched on the same subject in an earlier interview, reported by the Telegraph, where she named it as the one true repentance of her life.

“I’ve got my feet on the ground because I’ve got a lovely family waiting for me when I get home, even though they’re not my flesh and blood,” she said. “I haven’t got children. That’s my only regret, I suppose.”

And although their marriage lasted until her very last breath and even faced the heartbreak of a miscarriage, they went through another troublesome period.

The Affair Scandal That Nearly Ended Her Marriage

Behind the decades of public devotion sat a scandal that broke wide open in 2016, when Tyler’s marriage of then-43 years was rocked by claims that Sullivan, a multi-millionaire property developer, had carried on a passionate affair with one of the singer’s most devoted fans, according to the Mirror.

Meghann Pernot, a French admin worker who ran Tyler’s official fan page, alleged that she and Sullivan, then 67 to her 25, carried on an affair for 18 months that included weekly hotel meetings over a six-month stretch.

Pernot said she first met Tyler and Sullivan backstage at a concert in Brunnen, Switzerland, in March 2010, instantly connecting with the singer and eventually running the fan website the couple had come to rely on.

Despite being 42 years his junior, Pernot said she found herself drawn to Sullivan, and claimed he made his first move in 2014 backstage at one of Tyler’s French shows, kissing her and handing her his number.

“I was confused as I didn’t understand what was going on,” Pernot said. “At first, I thought they were a free couple. Sometimes it happens in showbiz. I told him don’t kiss another woman who’s not your wife. Then everything started from there.”

The affair and the weekly hotel sessions began in Portugal that summer, Pernot claimed, with Sullivan insisting on discretion at every turn.

“I would organise the hotels. He asked me not to put his name on the room. He was very careful,” she said. “He’d rush off and I wanted him to stay with me. I’d be crazy at him as it was difficult.”

She described him elsewhere as tender and romantic, noting that he always returned home at the exact time Tyler expected him, never altering his routine enough to raise suspicion.

Text messages exchanged between the pair in 2014 and 2015 grew increasingly explicit, according to the report. But Pernot eventually said she began to feel strung along, since Sullivan wanted to continue the affair but would not leave his wife.

“I asked him if he regretted what we were doing but he said absolutely not,” she recalled. “He told me I was making him happy. I got the impression he was free with me. He kept telling me he loved me.”

She described the only time the two felt like a real couple as a trip to Majorca, where Sullivan traveled annually with friends. Still, Pernot said she knew in her heart the relationship could not last.

“It was hurting too much and I was upset all the time. I thought if I told Bonnie everything it would be better.” She said she confessed everything to Tyler in January 2016, after the singer noticed she was “acting strange.”

According to her account, Sullivan tried to get ahead of the confession by telling Tyler that Pernot had been texting him unprompted and calling her “crazy,” which was followed by Tyler shouting at her directly.

Pernot also said Sullivan later left her a voicemail lashing out further. “He called me a crazy girl and said I needed to go to a mental hospital,” she said. “He called me evil and that he understands why everybody hates me. When I told Bonnie it was a relief. I kept it a secret too long. But it hurts as I lost them.”

Reflecting on the fallout, Pernot shared the deep pain of losing both the singer and the man she loved because this had completely altered her life.

She felt guilty because she could have stopped the situation at the very beginning. Instead, her powerful feelings for him took over, making it impossible to say no, and she confessed that she still loved him.

Even after the dust settled, she carried mixed feelings about the entire affair. While she mourned how everything fell apart, she did not regret meeting him because she had never experienced such strong feelings for anyone else.

However, she felt deeply betrayed by his lack of courage to tell the truth, pointing out that he lied to both his wife and her. Furthermore, she expressed that she used to have immense admiration for Bonnie.

Of the singer herself, Pernot said, “I feel sorry for Bonnie. She didn’t ask for any of this. She’s in the middle. She was nice to me, she treated me as a friend.”

At the time, the couple’s business empire spanned hotels, homes, a farm in New Zealand, and stables in Berkshire, and the pair split their time between an eight-bedroom mansion in the Mumbles, Swansea Bay, and a property in Santa Eulalia in Portugal’s Algarve.

Tyler herself had addressed infidelity in the marriage in interviews before the scandal, admitting that both she and Sullivan had strayed in their younger years.

“I wouldn’t put up with anything like that now and I wouldn’t expect him to but this was the 70s,” she said. “I was travelling without him. He had his own business and we couldn’t travel together. We’ve had ups and downs but if you can get through it all it makes you stronger.”

In another interview, she had described her marriage in far warmer terms, saying, “I am still very much in love with him and he with me. We never fall out. He is very easy on the eye, which helps.”

Neither Tyler nor Sullivan ever responded to repeated requests for comment on Pernot’s claims, and the couple remained married until Tyler’s death this week, leaving fans now piecing together a fuller picture of the life behind the music.