Genesis’ Phil Collins has confirmed that he can never play drums again, closing the door on the instrument that made him a global music icon. The drummer and singer suffered severe organ failure in 2024 and spent months in the hospital. He previously revealed that he now requires around-the-clock nursing care and relies on crutches to move. He discussed the health condition that made it impossible to play drums during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
“You can’t play drums anymore,” the interviewer asked. “You stopped. Is that irrevocable? Do you hope to get it back?”
“Well, it depends on the temperature,” Collins responded. “For example, this summer has been wonderful from a sunshine point of view. So I I um got an air conditioning in my room, air conditioning unit. And so I go upstairs and I used to sleep with it on up until few weeks ago. and I woke up in the morning and I can’t really move my fingers. It’s kind of an arthritis.”
“And to be honest, I haven’t really tried,” he continued. “Last time I tried was on the Genesis Last Domino tour when Nicholas was playing drums, my son. And I got the drums set up in a room just to see if I could play. And I knew as soon as I sat down, I started playing. And I I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t really hold the stick properly, I got dropped foot, which is in my right leg, you know, like from the knee downwards, which means I can’t really do much with it.”
“And at that time I needed a knee operation which eventually I had five of because it just kept getting infected or the spacer broke,” the musician added. “But I spent a long time in hospital. I mean part of it was the knee.”
“I mean, I’d never been in hospital ever until I mean I went in there for um pancreatitis a couple of times because of drinking and but up till that point in my life I had never been in hospital and suddenly I was living in hospital and it was you know literally sobering,” Collins concluded.
Phil Collins’ admission is the latest chapter in a long and well-documented physical decline, one that has been unfolding for nearly two decades. The problems that forced him to step away from the drum stool did not appear overnight. They extend well beyond his hands and his right leg.
Collins has not been able to play drums for roughly 15 years because of ongoing health issues, with back and nerve problems repeatedly cited as the main obstacles. The singer has also spoken at length about how drumming itself took a heavy toll on his body, leaving him with nerve damage in his hands and persistent trouble behind the kit. That damage explains why the attempt he made during the Last Domino? tour ended almost as soon as it began.
The Genesis farewell run became the clearest public measure of how far his condition had advanced. The band closed The Last Domino? farewell tour at London’s O2 Arena on March 26, 2022, with Collins performing seated and his son Nic Collins taking over on drums. Collins addressed the crowd from his seated position and told them, “Tonight is a very special night.” The moment marked the end of a defining era for one of the most influential bands in progressive rock.
His health problems have continued to escalate since that final bow. The singer was hospitalized in November 2023 and later spent seven months in the hospital after returning to intensive care, and he now lives with permanent scarring on his pancreas while his kidneys “barely” function. Collins has said he nearly died in 2024 after years of alcohol abuse, a stretch that included being unconscious for long periods in the ICU. His manager called his five children to his bedside in April 2024 amid fears he would not survive, and the musician now requires continuous nursing support.
Those experiences frame the blunt way he now describes his own limitations. The arthritis-like stiffness he mentioned in the interview is consistent with the mobility and joint problems that have followed him for years. This stiffness is one of several reasons the drum kit has remained untouched in his home. Even so, his legacy as one of rock’s defining voices and drummers remains intact.
