Phil Collins has detailed his recent battles with alcoholism in a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Times published on Sunday (Aug. 3). In it, the 75-year-old reflected on large portions of his career, discussed his personal life and spoke on mending his relationship with Paul McCartney.

Collins revealed that in April 2024, he was hospitalized in Switzerland following a relapse with alcohol and that his manager of 50 years summoned his five children to see him at his bedside.

“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing. My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” Collins said. “People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming, 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.”

The former Genesis member discussed his alcoholism in his 2016 memoir Not Dead Yet and was sober at the time of writing; in 2012, he’d previously been admitted to intensive care with acute pancreatitis and got sober as a result.

After this period of sobriety, which Collins attributes to the medication Antabuse, the singe/drummer began abusing again, but cannot remember when. “When I was drinking, the calendar goes out the window,” he said.

“But I’d have wine when I woke up. That was what I’d want for breakfast, a glass of wine. But I didn’t drink into the night, you know. So I wasn’t really aware of having a problem, to be honest.”

In November 2023, Collins was rushed to hospital and discharged three days later; several weeks later, Collins was rushed back into intensive care and spent seven months in hospital. “I was very lucky to have come out of that. Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”

Collins last performed live in 2022 as part of Genesis’ farewell tour. He is no longer able to drum due to nerve damage and numerous knee and spine surgeries.

Elsewhere in the interview, Collins discussed healing a rift with former Beatle McCartney after he said in a previous interview that the latter treated him “condescendingly.” McCartney read the interview and reached out, “saying, ‘I’m a bit disappointed, blah blah’. He said don’t be so … ‘sacrosanct’ was the word he used. I’m not sure what that means, but anyway it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth and obviously left a bad taste in his.”

An upcoming charity auction involving Collins and the King’s Trust helped mend the relationship, when McCartney agreed to donate an item after Collins wrote him a letter. “I wish I hadn’t said it, although it did happen. But we’ve made up, he’s happy about the fact that we discussed it, and I’m happy we discussed it, so it was just really lovely that it’s gone full circle now,” he said.

Collins will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act in November alongside Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross, and the Wu-Tang Clan. “I think people on the board thought I was already in,” Collins said on his belated entry. Had he not ever been inducted, “I’d have just put it down to being English and just being invisible.” Collins was inducted as part of Genesis in 2010.

Robyn and Zara Larsson have joined forces on “Talk To Me, Zara,” a new collaborative single that reworks a track from Robyn’s latest album.

The song is a new version of “Talk To Me,” originally featured on Robyn’s Sexistential — her ninth studio album, released in March. Larsson remixed the pulsing, Max Martin-co-produced original and added her own verse. The two Swedish stars debuted the track live at Copenhagen’s Royal Arena on July 14, when Robyn brought Larsson out as a surprise guest on the final night of the European leg of her Sexistential tour.

“Talk To Me, Zara” marks the second collaboration between the pair, with Larsson returning a favor: Robyn contributed a new mix of “Puss Puss” to Larsson’s remix album Midnight Sun: Girls Trip, released in May, which also featured reworkings from PinkPantheress, Shakira, Tyla, Kehlani and Madison Beer.

Sexistential was Robyn’s first album since 2018’s Honey and was accompanied by her first major headline tour since 2019. Robyn’s biggest cultural touchstone, “Dancing on My Own”, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2011.

For Larsson, the collaboration arrives during a career upswing in the U.S. Her signature stateside hit remains 2015’s “Never Forget You” with MNEK, which peaked at No. 13 on the Hot 100, while “Ruin My Life” reached No. 20 on Billboard’s Pop Songs chart in 2018. This year she notched her first career Grammy nomination, for “Midnight Sun” in the Best Pop Dance Recording category, and returned to the Hot 100 for the first time in a decade when her 2016 single “Lush Life” went viral, capping one of the strongest chart runs of her career.

Paul Kelly is returning to Kings Cross for the first time in decades, announcing a one-night-only show at the Potts Point Hotel on Aug. 30 — steps from the long-gone venue where the Australian songwriter cut his teeth in the mid-1980s.

The Sydney neighbourhood looms large in Kelly’s catalogue and mythology, and his return carries a personal weight. The Potts Point Hotel sits beside the laneway that once housed the Manzil Room, a late-night haunt Kelly played repeatedly in the mid-to-late ’80s.

“A wee hours sticky-carpet venue, attracting all the denizens of the night — street workers, bohemians, drug dealers, desperadoes, off work musicians,” he recalled in a statement.

“We’d play three sets, starting around 1am. The painter Brett Whiteley sometimes dropped in to hear us.” Kelly noted the Manzil Room is now a block of apartments, musing, “I wonder if the residents sometimes hear our chattering ghosts, the faint distant throb of our music.”

Fittingly, a recently completed mural of Kelly by artist Scottie Marsh adorns the exterior wall of the Potts Point Hotel.

The show doubles as a launch. Kelly will release a deluxe edition of his 2025 album Seventy two days before the gig, and access to the intimate show is tied to the release — fans can secure a spot by pre-ordering the deluxe edition from Kelly’s official store or entering a ballot for tickets.

Separately, Kelly is marking the 40th anniversary of his landmark 1986 double album Gossip with a 2LP anniversary reissue.

Seventy, released last November to mark both Kelly’s 70th birthday and his 50th year in music, debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart and followed a sold-out Australian arena tour. It was his 30th studio album, extending one of the most decorated careers in Australian music.

A 17-time ARIA Award winner and ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, Kelly has topped the ARIA Albums Chart with Life Is Fine (2017) and Nature (2018), and is behind some of the most enduring songs in the national canon, including “To Her Door,” “How to Make Gravy” and “From Little Things Big Things Grow.” He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for his contribution to the performing arts.