While his daughter Lily Collins succeeds with Emily in Paris, Phil Collins is trying to turn his life around due to his multiple health issues in recent years. The singer granted an exclusive interview to Zoe Ball for the special Phil Collins: Eras-In Conversation, broadcast on BBC 2, ahead of the artist's 75th anniversary.
When Phil Collins gave his last concert with the band Genesis in 2007, as he explained, "I could barely hold a drumstick" due to the dislocation of several upper vertebrae that affected his hands and gradually damaged his spinal cord.
In the BBC2 chat, the author of Another Day in Paradise confessed, "I've had five knee surgeries, I have one functioning knee and I can walk, albeit with assistance, you know, with crutches or whatever." He also pointed out that his kidneys are damaged due to alcohol. "I probably drank too much, and that's why my kidneys were damaged. I enjoyed coming off tour, coming off tour," he confessed.
He also clarified that he was not one to stay up all night drinking. "I drank during the day, but I guess I drank too much. I was never drunk, although I fell a couple of times. But it's one of those things that happened, and everything piled up, and I spent months in the hospital."
In recent times, the singer lives in his mansion with a nurse who is there twenty-four hours a day. "Making sure he takes his medication correctly."
Born in the affluent area of Chiswick, located in west London, when his parents gave him a toy drum kit for Christmas, they never imagined he would take it so seriously.
After Peter Gabriel left the band Genesis, Phil replaced him as a solo artist. Successes soon followed. From 1984 to 1989, Collins dominated the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, seven as a solo artist and one with the band. In 1996, he flew solo.
Phil Collins has been married three times. The first to a childhood friend named Andrea Bertorelli, with whom he was from 1975 to 1980, he adopted Joely (54) -from his wife's previous relationship- and they had a son, Simon (50), also a vocalist in a band.
After divorcing, he married Jill Tavelman, from whom he divorced in 1996 after twelve years of marriage, paying 12 million pounds. Lilly (37) was born from that union. With his last wife, Orianne Cevey (1999-2006), twenty years his junior, he had two more children, Nicolas (25) and Mathew (22). The separation cost him 25 million pounds.
With over 150 million records sold, the singer of You Can't Hurry Lovehas amassed a considerable fortune that, according to Celebrity Net Worth, would amount to 350 million dollars.