We show the existence and exact asymptotic behaviour of the unique solution u ∈ C2(Ω)∩C(Ω̄) near the boundary to the singular nonlinear Dirichlet problem −Δu = k(x)g(u) + λ|∇u|q, u > 0, x ∈ Ω, u|∂Ω = 0, where Ω is a bounded domain with smooth boundary in RN, λ ∈ R, q ∈ [0, 2], g(s) is non-increasing and positive in (0, ∞), lims→0+g(s) = +∞, k ∈ Cα(Ω) is non-negative non-trivial on Ω, which may be singular on the boundary.