Phil Collins on extent of alcohol addiction
Phil Collins used to fall over in front of his children after drinking spirits in the morning.
The ‘In The Air Tonight’ hitmaker – who started drinking heavily following the collapse of his nine-year marriage to Orianne Cevey in the late 2000s – has opened up about the extent of his alcohol addiction and how he came "very close to dying" from binging on booze whilst drowning his sorrows in front of the television.
Speaking at a press conference at the Royal Albert Hall today (17.10.16) hosted by Jools Holland to announce his ‘Not Dead Yet: Live 2017 Tour’, Phil explained: "I would never drink during the day because I had a show to do. And after the show, I couldn’t stay up too late because I had to get up in the morning and do another show.
"It’s when everything stopped that I thought, okay, I’ll turn on the television, watch a bit of cricket, have a couple of drinks.
"And then before you know it, within months you’re drinking vodka from the fridge in the morning and falling over in front of the kids, you know.
"But it was something I lived through, and I was lucky to live through it and get through it. I was very close to dying."
The 65-year-old musician’s drinking problem saw him hospitalised with acute pancreatitis.
He previously shared: "My organs were kind of f****d. It was spirits, corrosive stuff."
However, in an extract from his autobiography ‘Not Dead Yet’, Phil – who has two sons Nicholas, 15, and Matthew, 11, with Orianne – said that alcoholism hit him at that stage in time because he had too much free time.
He writes: "It took me until the age of 55 to become an alcoholic. I got through the heady 1960s, the trippy 1970s, the imperial 1980s, the busy 1990s. I was retired, content, and then I fell. Because I suddenly had too much time on my hands."
Phil – who also has Lily, 27, Simon, 40, and adoptive daughter Joely, 44, from two previous marriages – has come out of retirement after 10 years to announce his next run of gigs, including a five-night residency at London’s Royal Albert Hall next June.
He will then head to Cologne, Germany, and Paris, France, for two dates apiece before having "a lie down".
