Phil Collins is speaking out about his health issues, revealing that he recently underwent five knee surgeries and developed kidney problems from drinking. In a new interview with BBC Two, Collins elaborated on the chronic ailments that previously prompted him to retire from performing following Genesis’ final tour in 2022.
“It’s an ongoing thing,” Collins, 74, told BBC Two’s Zoe Ball as part of the TV special “Phil Collins Eras: In Conversation,” a five-part series that concludes on January 26. “I have a 24 hour live-in nurse, um, to make sure I take my medication as I should do. Uh, I’ve had challenges with my knee — I had everything that could go wrong with me did go wrong with me. You know, I mean, I got COVID in hospital my kidneys started to back up, you know, everything that start, that could all seemed to sort of converge at the same time.”
He discussed problems he’s had with his knee and the surgeries he’s undergone to fix it: “I had five operations on my knee now I’ve got a knee that works and I can walk, albeit with assistance, you know, crutches or whatever.”
Collins has been struggling with health issues for nearly two decades, as he suffered a spinal injury in 2007 that caused severe nerve damage and developed the condition “drop foot” after a back operation that makes it difficult to walk. In the interview, he explained that drinking led to problems with his kidneys and that he recently celebrated two years of sobriety.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Collins, who also suffers from type 2 Diabetes, bid farewell to the drum kit during Genesis’ final tour, singing from a seated position while his son handled percussion. In an interview in early 2025, he said that he had no inclination to return to a recording studio due to his health issues, and had previously said in 2021 that he could “barely hold a stick with this hand.”
But after Ball pressed him to get back in the studio, Collins responded, “I’ve got some things that are half formed or were never finished, and a couple of things that were finished, which I like, so you know. Maybe life in the old dog. Yeah. You’ll see.”