Inside Bonnie Tyler's 53-year marriage to husband and their unconventional life away from the spotlight

Robert worked as a club manager when he met Bonnie in 1970 after she started singing in nightclubs in Swansea, Wales. They married on July 4, 1973.

"I think the secret to our success is that we met before I was famous," she told The Times. "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. 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."

Robert and Bonnie have homes in the seaside village of Mumbles, on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea in South Wales, and Albufeira in the Algarve region of Portugal.

In 2009, they upgraded their five-bedroom property in the Santa Eulalia resort, knocking it down to reportedly build a full-frontal glass home with elaborate garden water features.

Bonnie previously described their home in the Algarve as her "sanctuary," but she always held a fondness for South Wales. 

"I love Mumbles and the Gower coast," Bonnie told the BBC. "When we get the weather, you couldn't be in a better place. I always loved it down this way, and I like keeping close to my family."

Robert worked as a real estate agent before becoming a successful property developer.

He and Bonnie invested in property worldwide, starting in the '70s when Robert and his business partner bought a plot of land in New Zealand. "At first we had a cashmere goat farm; then it became a dairy farm," Bonnie told The Times in 2023, the same year she and Robert sold the farm.

"We also own 65 stables in Lambourn, Berkshire, which we rent to the Jockey Club," she added. "We used to own 22 houses in Berkshire, but we've sold 17 of them."

While Robert's personal fortune has not been disclosed, he and Bonnie accumulated a reported joint net worth of $40 million, largely bolstered by their successful property investments and her lucrative music career. 

Before he met Bonnie, Robert was a prominent judoka in the early '70s and participated in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. He competed for Great Britain in the men's half-middleweight division, placing 18th.

That same year, he won silver at the 1972 European Team Championships in the Netherlands.

In a 2017 Instagram video of Catherine Zeta-Jones and her family dancing to Bonnie's hit song, "Total Eclipse of the Heart," the Oscar-winner revealed that "The fantastic Bonnie Tyler is related to us Jones'."

The connection to Bonnie is through marriage, as Robert is the cousin of Catherine's father, David James Jones.

Bonnie passed away "unexpectedly" in a hospital in Portugal on July 8, 2026, according to a statement posted on her website.

The statement read: "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."

Bonnie was placed in a medically induced coma in May to "aid her recovery" after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery.

In June, Bonnie's team shared that the star was no longer in a coma but remained "very unwell and in intensive care in hospital in Portugal."

"Although her condition is improving it is a slow process," a post on her website read. "Her doctors remain confident that she will make a good recovery but it is going to take time."