Phil Collins reveals in a new interview that he nearly died in 2024 amid his battle with alcoholic addiction.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, the singer said that he was first admitted to a Swiss hospital in connection with his alcohol use in November 2023. He was initially discharged before Christmas that year, but was readmitted a few weeks later and placed into intensive care, where he lay unconscious.
“My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” Collins said of the situation. “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 added that his five children rushed to the hospital, thinking their father was on his deathbed. “There were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing,” he said.
The Genesis singer ultimately spent seven months in the hospital recovering from his near-death ordeal. “I was very lucky to have come out of that,” Phil told the Sunday Times. “Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”
Collins has long been open about his struggles with alcohol addiction, which in part was spurred by the health issues related to his persistent back injuries. “Night after night I find myself lying on the bed, staring out of a skylight at grey Swiss skies, rueing my life,” Collins wrote in his 2016 memoir. “I’m all alone, save for my good friends Johnnie Walker and Grey Goose.”
Earlier this year, Collins spoke about his health issues, saying he had a “difficult, frustrating few years” due to five separate surgeries on his knee. “I have a 24-hour live-in nurse to make sure I take my medication as I should do,” he said. “I’ve had challenges with my knee … I had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me.”
At the time, he also said he’d “spent months in hospital” due to his drinking problem, but didn’t elaborate on how severe the situation was until the Sunday Times interview.