Phil Collins has revealed his loved ones were told to say their goodbyes while the Genesis frontman spent seven months in intensive care.
The British singer, 75, who has been open about his addiction to alcohol in the past, started drinking again after several years of sobriety – resulting in him being rushed to a Swiss hospital in November 2023.
Speaking about his hospital stay in a new interview, Collins revealed that he spent seven months in intensive care and was very close to death. The singer’s five children – Joely, 53, Simon, 49, Lily, 37, Nicholas, 25, and Matthew, 18 – were all summoned to his bedside as he lay unconscious.
“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing,” he told The Sunday Times. “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 admitted that he was “very lucky” to make it out of intensive care and hasn’t touched alcohol since – however, he has been left with long-term health issues as a result.
He told the publication that his pancreas is permanently scarred and his kidneys “barely function”, but he also suffers with other health problems following a serious spinal injury in 2007. He now walks on crutches and is cared for by a live-in nurse 24 hours, while also managing his type 2 diabetes.
In January, Collins revealed that he had undergone multiple operations on his knee, telling Zoe Ball in an interview: “I had everything that could go wrong with me, go wrong with me.”
Collins previously spoke about his alcoholism while promoting his 2016 memoir I’m Not Dead Yet, revealing that he started drinking heavily after his third marriage broke down and he retired from music. “You start drinking, and then you start drinking too much. Then it physically hurts you. I came very close to dying at that point,” he told The New York Times at the time.
The “In the Air Tonight” singer would open a bottle of wine at 11am in the morning at the height of his addiction, having split from his third wife, Orianne Cevey, in 2006 after seven years of marriage and two sons, Nicholas and Mathew. He was previously married to Andrea Bertorelli for five years until 1980, adopting her daughter Joely and welcoming son Simon with her in that time. He then wed Jill Tavelman, who is the mother of his daughter Lily, in 1986 before the pair divorced in 1996.
In the new interview, Collins also revealed that he spent last New Year with his family in London, while daughter Lily – who is best known for starring in Netflix’s Emily in Paris – sat beside him “in tears” saying, “I never thought I’d get these moments”.
The pair’s relationship has come a long way in the last 10 years, with the Netflix star admitting in an open letter in 2017 that a “terrible disconnect” had developed between them since her parents’ divorce. Phil Collins has now said that he was “quite shocked and a little bit sad” by his daughter’s open letter, but that they’ve patched things up.
“But she’s told me why now, and she takes it all back. She wished she’d never done it,” he said. “I have a wonderful relationship with Lily now. So everything has a happy ending, most of the time.”
Collins is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November, marking his second time being honoured after making it in as a member of rock band Genesis in 2010.
If you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol addiction, you can confidentially call the national alcohol helpline Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 or visit the NHS website here for information about the programmes available to you.
