The Genesis legend says his organs were failing as his five children were called to his hospital bedside.
Phil Collins has spent the better part of a decade leaning into the title of his memoir, Not Dead Yet.
In 2024, however, the title became uncomfortably close to reality.
The 75-year-old Genesis musician has revealed that his five children were called to his hospital bedside as his organs began failing during a near-fatal health crisis linked to alcohol addiction.
Speaking candidly in a new interview with The Sunday Times, Collins said he was unconscious in a Swiss hospital while his family and doctors faced difficult conversations about life support.
“My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” he recalled.
Collins had been rushed to hospital in November 2023 after his drinking once again spiralled out of control.
He was released shortly before Christmas but returned to intensive care several weeks later, eventually spending seven months in hospital.
By April 2024, his condition had deteriorated to the point that his longtime manager called all five of his children to his bedside.
Friends and relatives arrived fearing they were there to say goodbye, although Collins has no memory of seeing them.
He said he had no idea what was happening around him or how worried his family had become, only learning about those days later in his recovery.
Collins has previously spoken about struggling with alcohol following the breakdown of his third marriage.
After initially becoming sober, he began drinking again after stopping Antabuse, a medication designed to discourage alcohol consumption.
This time, he said, he was drinking wine from the moment he woke up.
Because he generally stopped drinking later in the day and did not always appear drunk, Collins admitted he had managed to convince himself the problem was under control.
It plainly was not.
The relapse left him with permanent scarring to his pancreas and severely impaired kidney function.
Collins said he considers himself extremely fortunate to have survived and has not touched alcohol since leaving hospital.
His recovery has not erased the other health problems that have gradually forced him away from the stage.
Collins continues to live with Type 2 diabetes, while nerve damage following several spinal and knee operations has left him unable to hold drumsticks or walk without crutches.
He now has a live-in nurse available around the clock to manage his medication and care.
Following the hospital ordeal, Collins brought his family together for four days at a London hotel over the New Year.
The gathering included plenty of food, games and long conversations, along with some understandably emotional moments.
His daughter Lily Collins, known for starring in Emily in Paris, reportedly became tearful while sitting beside her father and told him: “I never thought I’d get these moments.”
After coming so close to losing them, those ordinary family moments appear to mean more to Collins than any arena, award or platinum record ever could.
