Bonnie Tyler remembered as a global superstar as fans gathered to farewell the singer outside a Welsh church
Fans have crowded outside a Welsh church where family and friends remembered husky-voiced singer Bonnie Tyler as a star loved worldwide.
Tyler’s If I Sing You A Love Song played as her rose-covered coffin was carried into Swansea Minster for the invitation-only funeral that was projected on a screen outside.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Bonnie Tyler farewelled in emotional Welsh homecoming
Her It’s a Heartache played as the coffin was placed in front of the altar.
“Bonnie was always a star but never a diva,” her manager Matthew Davis said in one of several tributes.
“She never forgot her roots or where she came from. She would have been amazed and very gratified at the massive outpouring of love from all over the world that has occurred since her sudden and unexpected passing.”
The Grammy-nominated pop star, beloved for her 1983 chart-topping power ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart, died last month in a hospital in Portugal at 75.
She had been hospitalised in May in Faro , where she had a home, for emergency intestinal surgery.
The funeral was held less than a week after her signature song served as the soundtrack at celebrations marking a total eclipse that darkened skies across parts of Europe.
Crowds lined the streets on Saturday in her seaside Welsh village of Mumbles as a hearse carried her coffin, draped in a Welsh flag, home.
Kathleen Davies, who joined the crowd outside the church, said she was starstruck when she first saw Tyler but later came to learn she was down to earth.
“Everything about her, she’s natural, there’s no fake stuff. When you see her on the interviews, she’s just who she is.”
Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins, a coal miner’s daughter in public housing with an outside toilet in Skewen, Wales, about 11km outside Swansea.
Canon Justin Davies said in a eulogy written by her family that she first performed in a contest at a rugby club in the late 1960s, singing Those Were The Days, made famous by Mary Hopkin.
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