Phil Collins Reveals He's on the Path to Recovery and New Music as his Health Improves

With what portrays a deeply personal update, music legend Phil Collins has broken his silence regarding the "convergence" of health crises that have sidelined him since the conclusion of Genesis’ farewell tour in 2022. Speaking with Zoe Ball for the BBC series Eras, the 74-year-old artist revealed that he is now under 24-hour live-in care to manage a complex regimen of medications and physical therapy. Despite these hurdles, Collins shared a significant milestone: he has officially reached two years of sobriety, a achievement that he credits for his newfound stability and a burgeoning desire to return to the recording studio.

“I’d probably been drinking too much, and so my kidneys were messed up, you know, I mean, I enjoyed coming off tour. Coming off the road, but I thought, right, I’m gonna do all those things that I, I couldn’t do. I stopped drinking at six o’clock in the evening. I wasn’t one of those guys that sort of stayed up all night drinking, you know, I’d, I’d drink during the day, but I guess I had too much of it. I was never drunk, although I fell over a couple of times. But, it is just one of those things that happened and it all caught up with me and I spent months in hospital.” -Phil Collins

The interview painted a stark picture of the "frustrating" physical decline Collins has faced over the last decade. He detailed a harrowing period where his kidneys began to fail—a complication he candidly attributed to years of daytime drinking—occurring simultaneously with a severe bout of COVID-19 contracted during a hospital stay. However, following five separate operations on his knee, Collins confirmed he has finally regained partial mobility. While he still requires assistance from crutches to walk, the physical progress has cleared enough mental space for him to look toward his archives, noting that he has "half-formed" material he is eager to "fiddle about with" in his home studio.

Phil says that, with the current recovery he's having, he's confident he'll be able to enjoy the last years of his life committed to his lifelong passion: music.

A Decade of Physical Toll: The Technical Reality of a Drumming Icon

The physical challenges Collins faces today are the cumulative result of a career defined by high-intensity performance. The root of his mobility and dexterity issues traces back to a 2007 spinal injury sustained during the Turn It On Again tour. Decades of drumming with an aggressive, hunched posture led to a dislocated vertebra in his neck, which subsequently crushed his spinal cord. The resulting nerve damage was so severe that it caused "drop foot" and left him unable to grip drumsticks without taping them to his hands—a condition that eventually forced him to relinquish the drum throne to his son, Nic Collins, during later tours.

Beyond the neurological impact, the technical reality of Collins' recovery in 2026 involves managing the long-term effects of brittle bones, caused by years of cortisone injections used to preserve his voice during the 1980s and 90s. This history of fragility led to a series of falls and fractures that complicated his internal organ recovery. By implementing a 24-hour medical watch and committing to sobriety, Collins is navigating a "medical comeback" that many in the industry thought impossible. While a return to the stage remains off the table, the prospect of new music from one of the most successful songwriters in history marks a triumphant shift from survival back to creativity.