Phil Collins Recalls Health Crisis That Left His Family Facing a Heartbreaking Decision

Phil Collins has opened up about one of the most frightening periods of his life, revealing that his five children were called to his hospital bedside in 2024 as his condition deteriorated to the point that his family faced difficult decisions about life support.

The 75-year-old musician said he was unconscious in a Swiss hospital in April 2024 following heavy alcohol use, while his kidneys and other organs were beginning to fail.

“My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” Collins told The Sunday Times. “People were coming to say goodbye.”

Yet Collins himself had no awareness of what was happening around him.

“I don’t remember them coming,” he said. “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.”

His Five Children Were Called to His Bedside

According to Collins, his manager of 50 years contacted all five of his children — daughters Lily Collins and Joely Collins, and sons Simon Collins, Nicolas Collins and Matthew Collins — as his condition became increasingly serious.

The family was summoned because there were potentially life-changing decisions to make.

“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing,” the Grammy winner recalled.

The Sunday Times reported that Collins had initially been hospitalized in November 2023 in connection with his alcohol use.

He was released three days before Christmas, but his health crisis was far from over.

Only weeks later, Collins was rushed back into intensive care. He ultimately spent seven months in the hospital.

Looking back, the former Genesis frontman recognizes how fortunate he was to survive.

“I was very lucky to have come out of that,” he said.

The experience also brought a major change to his life.

“Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”

An Emotional Family Reunion Followed

Later in 2024, Collins and his family were able to come together under very different circumstances.

They gathered at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge, spending four days and nights together and making the most of time that, only months earlier, his children had feared they might never have.

Collins remembered an emotional moment with his daughter Lily, now 37.

She was sitting beside him in tears and told her father: “I never thought I’d get these moments.”

For Collins, the family reunion became particularly meaningful after everything they had endured.

“We had an incredible time,” he said. “I can’t overemphasise how fantastic it was.”

Collins Previously Opened Up About Alcoholism

The singer has spoken candidly about his relationship with alcohol before.

In his 2016 autobiography, Not Dead Yet, Collins wrote that alcoholism became part of his life amid difficulties in his personal relationships and problems caused by a back injury.

“Night after night I find myself lying on the bed, staring out of a skylight at grey Swiss skies, rueing my life,” he wrote.

He described being alone except for what he called his “good friends Johnnie Walker and Grey Goose.”

His alcohol-related health crisis was only one part of a much broader series of medical difficulties that have affected Collins in recent years.

Years of Health Problems Changed His Life and Career

Collins has dealt with nerve damage, knee problems, kidney issues and type 2 diabetes, conditions that eventually affected his ability to perform music.

Earlier this year, he spoke about the extent of his ongoing health needs during an appearance on BBC’s Eras podcast with Zoe Ball.

“It’s an ongoing thing,” Collins said.

He explained that he now has round-the-clock assistance to help manage his medication.

“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.”

Those physical limitations also had major consequences for his career. Collins retired ahead of Genesis’ final tour in 2022 as his health increasingly restricted his ability to play music.

But his recollection of the 2024 hospitalization reveals just how close his health problems came to having an even more devastating outcome.

While Collins has little memory of his children gathering at his bedside believing they might be saying goodbye, the family reunion later that year offered them something very different: four days together that his daughter once feared they would never have.