Bonnie Tyler: Brexit is a pain in the neck over visa rules
2025-02-01
Category: entertainment

Singer Bonnie Tyler says Brexit is a pain in the neck for limiting the time she can spend at her spare home in Portugal. The 72-year-old artist from Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, is currently touring Europe but because of the new 90-day limit rule, she is left with little time to relax there.In an interview with Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales Tyler also spoke about the journey to finding her stage name Bonnie, her new single and how she is enjoying singing and performing more than ever.Bonnie said she now has more time to enjoy herself compared with the height of the success of her song - Total Eclipse of the Heart. 
Bonnie's career started at 17, when she would perform at rugby and working men's clubs.She was discovered while performing with her band Imagination at the Townsman Club in Swansea. However, she was not known as Bonnie Tyler and there were quite a few name changes along the road to stardom. Bonnie was born Gaynor Hopkins but she "never really liked the name" and therefore decided to change her name to Sherene Davies."When I was in my band Bobby Wayne and the Dixies, I was called Sherene - that was my sister's first little girls name, and I loved that name."But when she signed her first record deal, RCA Records suggested another change, believing Sherene "sounded like a belly dancer".Bonnie said: "I got a broadsheet newspaper and I made an effort to write all the first names I came across on one list and all the surnames on another and I went through them both and came up with Bonnie Tyler. And it's been a brilliant name." 
Following her breakout hits It's a Heartache and Lost in France in the 1970s, Bonnie, dubbed "the female Rod Stewart" for her husky voice, has gone on to have a career spanning 50 years.Despite thinking she would never still be singing at her age, Bonnie said she enjoys it more than ever.   "I'm enjoying it more these days than at the height of the success of Total Eclipse, because you're so busy winging it from one place to another, doing interviews every five minutes, you're on planes, and going to different studios and no time to really enjoy it as much as I do now."Her love for the industry is clear, as she recently released a new single, Yes I Can, which is as a song about finding inner strength and believing in yourself, she said."I love the meaning of it, it's inspiring. "My mother brought me up to believe in myself. I was a very shy little girl growing up in school, wouldn't say 'boobah' to a goose, and I was very, very shy. But I've overcome that, because I love singing." She added. Bonnie is currently on tour in Poland, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and she said Brexit has made it difficult for her to spend time at her second home in Portugal."It's been a pain in the neck," she said. Reports suggest that Bonnie and her husband, Robert Sullivan, own 22 homes worldwide, though they mainly split their time between Portugal and their home in Mumbles, Swansea.