Phil Collins: Totally Mobile and Healthy After Five Knee Surgeries
Phil Collins: Totally Mobile and Healthy After Five Knee Surgeries
Phil Collins opens up about five knee surgeries, kidney issues from alcohol, two years sober, and hints at new music in a candid BBC interview.
Phil Collins has largely kept a low profile since Genesis Last Domino? tour wound down in early 2022, but a BBC Eras interview reveals that the singer drummer is in a much different place physically and emotionally. Collins says he is now totally mobile and healthy after a string of painful knee surgeries, and he is even thinking about new music again. He describes a difficult, frustrating few years during which he required a 24-hour live-in nurse to help manage medications and daily routines.
Over the past 15 years, Collins has battled nerve damage from the 2007 Genesis reunion tour, including loss of feeling in his fingers that made drumming, and even gripping utensils, challenging. He has walked with a gait abnormality known as foot drop, and on some of his last tours he performed from a chair or stool rather than standing. The toll also extended beyond pain: he has spoken about periods of self-medicating with alcohol.
In the interview, Collins reveals he has been sober for two years. I was never drunk, although I fell over a couple of times, he says, noting that the health crisis and the months he spent in hospital were a turning point. He has also faced kidney problems tied to drinking, a factor in his ongoing health concerns.
Photos released alongside the interview show a visibly healthier Collins, and he expresses optimism about the future, saying he can walk, albeit with crutches or other assistance. He says the battle is not over — it is an ongoing thing — but the latest surgeries have cleared a path toward a potential new phase for his music career.
Though no firm comeback date has been announced, the BBC Eras interview signals a renewed focus on writing and possibly recording new material. After stepping back from performing during and after the 2022 era of Genesis, Collins is hinting at a future that could involve fresh songs, guided by his renewed health and sobriety.
