MUSIC
Phil Collins
Phil Collins came close to death in 2024, loved ones said goodbye
Brendan MorrowUSA TODAY
Aug. 2, 2026, 4:20 p.m. ET
Phil Collins has revealed he came so close to death more than two years ago that his loved ones were saying goodbye
The Genesis drummer, 75, told The Sunday Times in an interview published Aug. 1 that when he was hospitalized in April 2024 due to his heavy drinking, his manager called his five children to his bedside amid concerns that he wouldn’t make it
“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing,” he said. “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.”
According to The Sunday Times, Collins was rushed to the hospital in November 2023 at a time when his drinking had gotten “out of control.” He was discharged just days before Christmas. However, he had to be rushed back into intensive care weeks later and ended up spending seven months in the hospital
“I was very lucky to have come out of that,” he told the outlet. “Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”
The paper also described Collins, who opened up in 2025 about his health problems impacting his desire to make music, as “unassuming and wry” yet “physically meek” during the interview. Since undergoing several spine and knee surgeries, the musician can only walk with the help of crutches
In January, Collins shared on BBC’s “Eras” podcast series that he has “a 24-hour live-in nurse to make sure I take my medication as I should do” and noted he continues to grapple with the complications from a 2007 spinal injury that caused damage to vertebrae in his upper neck and nerve damage
“I had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me,” he told the BBC. He also said at the time that his kidneys were “messed up” due to excessive drinking
“It is just one of those things that happened, and it all caught up with me, and I spent months in hospital,” he told the BBC. “It’s just been a difficult, interesting, frustrating last few years. But it’s all right now.”
In May, Collins made a rare public appearance, using crutches, at Buckingham Palace for the 50th-anniversary party of King Charles III’s nonprofit, The King’s Trust
Collins will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman and Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY
