Tuomas Holopainen has ruled out a Nightwish reunion with Tarja Turunen, and in doing so revealed what he’s turning down. Speaking to Metal Hammer, the keyboardist said somebody had put it to him that if he brought Tarja and former bassist Marko Hietala back, the band could tour South America alone for a year straight. His answer: that’s not gonna happen. He also did something he’s never really done before — accepted that Nightwish deserved the blame for how the 2005 split was handled.
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What he turned down
Start with the number, because it’s the most concrete thing in the interview and it tells you the scale of what’s being refused.
Holopainen says someone put it to him directly: get Tarja and Marko Hietala back in, and you could tour South America for a year straight.
Not a leg. Not a run of festivals. Twelve months, one continent.
Anyone who’s followed this band knows that isn’t a fantasy. Nightwish in South America is a phenomenon — Tarja herself moved to Buenos Aires after the split and built a second life there, and symphonic metal has an audience in that part of the world that European bands genuinely cannot explain. A reunited classic-era Nightwish playing Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico for a year would be one of the largest touring propositions in metal.
His response to all of it was five words. That’s not gonna happen.
His reasoning: it was a divorce, and an ugly one at that, so he thinks they have their own lives now.
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And then he admitted it
Here’s the part that’s genuinely new, and it’s the reason this interview matters beyond the reunion question.
For twenty-one years the Nightwish camp’s position on the 2005 split has been broadly defensive. This time Holopainen said something different.
Nightwish get blamed for what happened, he said — for good reason.
Read that again. The man who wrote the letter is conceding the criticism was earned.
He still holds the underlying position — that there was no future for the band with Tarja in it. His description of where they were: just operating in survival mode, and plagued by dark thoughts.
But he doesn’t defend the method. And the method is the whole story.
What actually happened in 2005
For anyone who came to this band through Floor Jansen, the thing to understand is that Tarja Turunen wasn’t quietly let go at the end of a cycle.
She was handed an open letter at the end of the 2005 tour — and the same letter was published on the Nightwish website at the same moment.
She found out she was fired and the entire world found out simultaneously. There was no window, no statement agreed between lawyers, no chance to get ahead of it.
And the letter wasn’t neutral. The band wrote that to her, unfortunately, business, money and things that have nothing to do with emotions had become much more important.
That’s an accusation about someone’s character, published to their own fanbase, before they’d had an hour to absorb being sacked.
Holopainen’s account of the fallout is that the remaining members got completely butchered in the media — that it was as though they were evil neanderthals who’d hurt their wonderful ex-singer. He added, drily, that he received some really interesting letters.
He’s also previously called the decision to part with Tarja the most difficult thing he’s ever had to do.
Her version, from the same magazine, a month earlier
And this is the part nobody else is going to put together.
Tarja gave her account of the same events to Metal Hammer last month. Holopainen gave his this month. Same publication, consecutive issues, and the second reads as a direct reply to the first — two people conducting a conversation through a magazine twenty-one years after they stopped having it in person.
Her version is considerably harder.
What followed the letter, she says, was really great planning — how they wanted to destroy her publicly. She says it was something she never expected, and that it was nasty.
Then the cost of it. An insane period. In a small country like Finland, her face covering the tabloids for around three weeks. She left her home country. She says she had to. She went to Buenos Aires.
And the part that’s easy to skim past: it affected far more than her. Her family, her friends — everybody was destroyed. It took her a long time to trust people again.
But the sharpest thing she said isn’t about what they did. It’s about what she didn’t do.
She had all her rights. There were contracts. In her words, they would have been in deep shit for a long time if she’d used them — and she didn’t. She decided to move on and leave.
Twenty-one years later, asked what she’d change, her answer was that she probably should have put them through hell.
That’s a woman saying out loud that she regrets the mercy. It’s the most revealing line either of them has given, and it explains why this doesn’t heal.
Has she ever left the door open?
Barely, and less over time.
In 2019 she told Kerrang! she didn’t see anything happening with her and them, to be perfectly honest — while noting that Marko Hietala came into the band later and was always someone she was close to. On Holopainen specifically: they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, but they had been in touch, and it wasn’t bad. The past is what it is and can’t be changed; only the future can.
Asked a few years ago whether she’d tour with them if all her former bandmates apologised and invited her back, she was careful rather than warm. She said she couldn’t really close any doors any more, that she isn’t that kind of person now, and that it would be very hypothetically possible.
Then: it would be unlikely to happen.
And her position before that had been blunter. Maybe one day she’ll forgive, she said, but she will never forget.
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The book, and the lawsuit that failed
One more piece of this that gets left out, and it matters because it’s the only part that ever went before a judge.
Nightwish’s authorised biography, Once Upon a Nightwish: The Official Biography 1996-2006, came out in Finnish in 2006 and in English three years later. It blamed Tarja’s husband, Marcelo Cabuli, for the events leading to her expulsion.
Cabuli and his Brazilian business partners sued the publisher, Like Kustannus Oy, and the author, Marko “Mape” Ollila, for defamation — arguing the book contained false accusations and insinuations that had caused suffering and financial damage.
In 2011 the Helsinki District Court dismissed the case. The court found that the book criticised Cabuli on only a few of its 380 pages, that it hadn’t detrimentally affected his work or reputation in South America, and that Ollila had not maliciously portrayed him in a negative light.
Worth stating the outcome plainly, because the existence of a lawsuit gets cited far more often than its result.
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Where everyone is now
Nightwish have had Floor Jansen since 2012 — she made her live debut on October 1 that year at Showbox Sodo in Seattle after the abrupt departure of Anette Olzon, joined officially in 2013, and recorded her first album with them on 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Fourteen years in, she isn’t a replacement any more; she’s simply the singer.
Marko Hietala left in 2020.
Tarja released Frisson Noir in June via earMUSIC, described by her label as the heaviest record of her career and a statement of identity, strength and belonging. Twenty-one years after being handed that letter, she’s still making metal records and still selling out rooms in the city she fled to.
Three separate careers, all of them working. Which is roughly what Holopainen meant by saying they have their own lives now — and it’s the only genuinely uncomplicated thing about this story.
It’s also the second time this month that one of the bands that built a genre has publicly closed the door on a reunion everybody wanted — Tony Iommi revealed a fortnight ago that he’d turned down a final Black Sabbath album with the original lineup. The difference is that Sabbath’s door shut because somebody died. This one is shut because of a letter.
TL;DR
- Tuomas Holopainen has ruled out a Nightwish reunion with Tarja Turunen, telling Metal Hammer: “That’s not gonna happen.”
- What he turned down: he says someone put it to him that with Tarja and former bassist Marko Hietala back in the band, they could tour South America alone for a year straight.
- His reasoning: “It was a divorce, and an ugly one at that, so I think we have our own lives now.”
- The admission: Holopainen said Nightwish “get blamed for what happened, for good reason,” while maintaining there was no future for the band with Turunen. He described the period as operating in survival mode.
- How the 2005 split happened: Turunen was handed an open letter at the end of the tour, published on the band’s website at the same moment, which accused her of prioritising business and money over emotion.
- Her account, given to the same magazine a month earlier: that the band planned to destroy her publicly, that her face covered the Finnish tabloids for three weeks, and that she left the country for Buenos Aires.
- What she says she’d change: she had contracts and rights and could have taken them to court, and chose not to. She now says she probably should have put them through hell.
- The lawsuit: her husband Marcelo Cabuli sued over the band’s authorised biography. The Helsinki District Court dismissed the case in 2011.
- Floor Jansen has fronted Nightwish since 2012. Tarja released Frisson Noir in June.
FAQ
Will Tarja Turunen rejoin Nightwish?
No. Tuomas Holopainen told Metal Hammer in September 2026 that a reunion is “not gonna happen,” describing the 2005 split as “a divorce, and an ugly one at that.” He revealed he had been told the band could tour South America for a year straight if Turunen and former bassist Marko Hietala returned, and declined.
Why did Tarja Turunen leave Nightwish?
She didn’t leave — she was fired. At the end of the band’s 2005 tour she was handed an open letter from the other members, which was published on the Nightwish website simultaneously. It accused her of prioritising “business, money, and things that have nothing to do with emotions.” Holopainen has since said there was no future for the band with her in it, while acknowledging that Nightwish deserved the criticism they received for how it was done.
What has Tarja Turunen said about the split?
Speaking to Metal Hammer in August 2026, she said the band had planned to destroy her publicly, that her face covered the Finnish tabloids for around three weeks, and that she left Finland for Buenos Aires as a result. She also said she had contracts and legal rights she chose not to use, and that in hindsight she “probably should have put them through hell.”
Who is Nightwish’s singer now?
Floor Jansen, who made her live debut with the band on October 1, 2012 following Anette Olzon’s departure, officially joined in 2013, and first recorded with them on 2015’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful.
What is Tarja Turunen doing now?
She released Frisson Noir in June 2026 via earMUSIC, described by her label as the heaviest record of her career. She continues to tour as a solo artist and has lived in Argentina since shortly after the Nightwish split.
Twenty-one years, one open letter, and a year of sold-out South American shows left on the table. Should they find a way, or is some damage permanent? Tell me below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
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