Phil Collins has not been in good health in recent years, but until now it wasn't publicly known just how bad things got. In a new interview, Collins, 75, revealed he was on his death bed two years ago due to alcohol abuse.
Speaking with the Times of London, Collins said in April 2024, his longtime manager summoned his five children to his bedside in a Swiss hotel to say goodbye. "Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing," Collins recalled. "My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up. People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming, I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong."
Collins had struggled with alcohol addiction on and off over the years, as described in his 2016 memoir Not Dead Yet. He was sober when the book came out, partially thanks to a drug called Antabuse, but he went off the drug for some reason. At one point he spent a month at his friend Eric Clapton's rehab clinic in Antigua but opened up a bottle of wine on the plane home. "But I’d have wine when I woke up," he said. "That was what I’d want for breakfast, a glass of wine. But I didn’t drink into the night, you know. So I wasn’t really aware of having a problem, to be honest."
In late 2023 things got so bad that he ended up in the hospital for seven months, leading to the deathbed scenario. He's been sober since making it out of the hospital alive. Now he has a 24/7 live-in nurse, who helps to deal with his other health problems, including type 2 diabetes, nerve damage in his hand that prevents him from holding a drumstick, and fallout from multiple spine and knee surgeries that prevents him from walking without crutches. His pancreas and kidneys remain fragile due to the effects of alcoholism.
But things are going well enough that he was able to rent out a floor of a London hotel to spend a few days ringing in the new year with his family last winter. He recalled his daughter Lily, the Emily In Paris actress, crying tears of joy over the special family moments they shared. Collins also said he's interested in finding a fourth wife after things ended so poorly with his prior spouse. He covers a lot of ground, including re-litigating his widely panned LiveAid performance with Led Zeppelin, making peace with Paul McCartney and Piers Morgan, and more.
Collins, who is already in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame as a member of Genesis, is set to be inducted as a solo artist this year. He won't perform, but he's looking forward to running into fellow inductees Oasis after Noel Gallagher once called him the antichrist. The ceremony is scheduled for Nov. 14 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
In other Collins news, he went on BBC Radio 2 for the Tracks Of My Years segment, in which host Vernon Kay talks to artists about records that have been important to them throughout their lives. One song Collins chose was "White Horse" from Taylor Swift's 2008 sophomore album Fearless. He had this to say about it:
I was at an event, Songwriters Hall Of Fame, and Taylor Swift, I met her. This was way, way back. And Lily introduced me, funnily enough. 'Cause she knew her. And I met her. I'd kind of known the name, but she wasn't anywhere near the star she is today. A very nice lady. Then she got up on stage with a guitar and sang 'White Horse.' And it blew me away completely 'cause not only was the song great, and the sentiment of the song really got me, but she sang it beautifully. And it was just so simple, you know, her on the guitar. So I've always had a soft spot for this song since then. I'm so pleased that she's the hugest thing in the world now. 'Cause she, it kind of feels like she deserves it, you know? It's easy to knock someone who's got so much success, but I think she really deserves it.
Watch Collins deliver these words below.
