How Phil Collins won back the ex-wife he always loved . . .
...even though he had paid her £25m in divorce money!
THEIR relationship can in no way be described as love’s young dream: both walk with the help of a cane and have chronic health problems. But just eight years after their hugely expensive divorce – he paid out £25million (€33million) – Phil Collins and his Swiss former wife Orianne Cevey, 42, have written their own happy ending.
Former Genesis drummer Phil, 65, is delighted to have rekindled the romance. Generally dryhumoured to the point of sour, he gushed last week: ‘I’m in a happy place and you know why. It is exciting.’
Part of his thrill must come from the fact that while Orianne is blessed with model good looks, Phil knows he is no Adonis. He told an i nterviewer only this month: ‘I wish my face wasn’t as round, I wish I had hair. I wish I was a little slimmer.’
So how on earth did Phil – thrice divorced and at the tail end of a stupendously successful career – persuade his ex-wife 24 years his junior to take him back?
First, it seems he embarked on a long campaign of care and attention when Orianne was virtually crippled after surgery on a slipped disc in 2014. He also conquered his problem drinking – not to mention finally putting aside his obsession with the Battle of the Alamo.
But as well as Phil’s transformation, perhaps the circumstances of the end of his marriage to Orianne should be considered when examining how they managed to rekindle the romance.
Collins’s mentor and f riend Barbara Speake, who ran a theatrical school with his late mother June, believes he never wanted to leave Orianne and that she chose to end the union only because she was in the throes of post-natal depression after the birth of their son Matthew in 2005.
‘Phil was really cut up when Orianne ended it, because they had seemed so happy together and so close. He never wanted the divorce to happen,’ she said.
AND so – against all odds, as his song goes – the pair have made a new start in a $30million home overlooking Miami’s Biscayne Bay. It has been the most discreet of reunions, with the news only emerging last week when Phil told an interviewer: ‘I’m actually back with my third wife. I haven’t really talked about it. We’ve been together for a while, and no-one’s noticed.
‘We thought we made a mistake and we fixed it. It wasn’t the horror story some divorces are. We stayed very close and started to talk and it appeared we missed each other so it was kind of a gradual thing. We decided that we shouldn’t have got divorced. She got remarried, but we maintained a great relationship and she missed me, I missed her. The children are really happy.’
Indeed, Phil’s various children from his three marriages have played their part in the reconciliation. His daughter, the actress Lily, by his second wife Jill Tavelman, is said to be close to Orianne.
And I understand that his son Simon, who is nearly 40, lives parttime in the Miami house – despite Phil being at loggerheads with his first wife, Simon’s mother, Andrea, all these years on over who caused the breakdown of their marriage.
Nicholas, 14, and Matthew, ten, his two beloved sons with Orianne, live with them, too.
It’s all very cosy. But despite this show of happy families, Phil won’t be considering remarriage.
After all, this is the man who has paid out no less than £42million in divorce settlements. Phil and Ori- anne’s love story began in 1994 when she had been hired to translate for him on tour. His marriage to Jill Tavelman was ending in the most bitter of ways.
Orianne was just 21 – and Phil fell for her. Two years on, he and Jill were divorced, a severance that cost him £17million. Phil’s decision to split is said to have been delivered to Jill by fax.
A year later, in 1997, he moved to Switzerland to be with Orianne and the pair married in 1999. The couple settled in the village of Begnins. Everything seemed blissful. But within 15 months of their second son’s arrival in December 2004, it was over. The divorce was finalised in 2008.
Barbara Speake said: ‘It seems Orianne was suffering from severe post-natal depression. Her mother, Orawan, is convinced Orianne got a serious case of the baby blues. She thinks it was the depression that triggered the divorce.
‘We don’t think Orianne even knew she was suffering with it.
‘Phil was desperately trying to hold everything together, but he didn’t know what was wrong with Orianne at the time. It all came out of nowhere.’
Phil moved into a bachelor pad, while Orianne stayed at home with the children. Devoted to his sons, he would visit them daily.
However, Orianne moved on to a new relationship with banker Charles Mejjati, whom she soon married. Phil remained part of her life and publicly insisted they all enjoyed each other’s company.
However, in moments of candour, he told interviewers he still loved his ex-wife. In 2010 he said: ‘I’d rather still be married and I think Orianne feels the same. Orianne and I still love each other and I don’t actually know why we got divorced. We are still friends. When Orianne has problems, she calls me. Or when she has an argument with her husband, she calls me. A shared life doesn’t have to be over just because you split up.’
His alcohol consumption began to escalate and he was put on medication for complex health issues. Deaf in one ear, he also suffered nerve damage in his hands and could no longer drum, something that caused him much despair. He tried to carry on, even taping the sticks to his hands, but it seemed hopeless. ‘F*** music,’ he said sourly in 2007.
Music had been his l i felong passion and in its place came the Battle of the Alamo, an obsession sparked when he was a youngster and would watch the TV series Davy Crockett. The battle saw 1,500 Mexican troops lay siege to 200 Texans at the Alamo Mission, San Antonio. All but a handful of the Texans were killed. While Phil remained stuck in the past, Orianne had a baby with her husband in 2011 and moved to Miami in 2012.
Phil’s drinking hit new levels: ‘Not working and not having the boys left a big void,’ he said. ‘I’d retired to be with my children in Switzerland, but then they left to go to Miami with their mum.
‘I’d wake up, turn the TV on and have a glass of wine. You look up at the end of the day and you’ve knocked off a couple of bottles and you’re still sober. I spent way too much time horizontal. It started to be bad for my body. I almost died. I went to meetings, and I did try rehab – for a week! But I just couldn’t stand it. It was like being in a boarding school. So I said to myself: “I know what I need to do; I’m not a f****** alcoholic.” ’
He gave up drinking – he’s been dry for three years – and gave away his Alamo memorabilia. And, for one week a month, he would stay in Miami to be close to his children. Then came Orianne’s own crushing misfortune. After surgery on a slipped disc in late 2014, she was paralysed and in a wheelchair. She had to learn to walk again.
Phil moved to Miami to help with the children. Within six months, he and Orianne were an item. Her marriage broke up as she was recovering from surgery.
According to legal papers filed by her this week, her husband had her sign over the marital home in Miami to him while she was high on drugs for back pain and had no idea what she was doing. So she was, effectively, homeless.
Phil bought a house for them last summer, and from that start came a decision to relaunch his career. He said: ‘ I’m with the children, getting up at 6.30am to take them to school. They want me to write songs and play shows so they can tell their friends about it.’
He’s had further physical issues, and last year had major back surgery. ‘My back and hips were just shot. The doctor had to go in there, work on the sciatic nerve, take my back apart and unscramble the mess.’
Phil is more focused on music than he has been since his 2002 album Testify, his last collection of new material. ‘I’m no longer officially retired. The horse is out of the stable and I’m raring to go.’
And he adds, beaming: ‘It’s on my wish list to be happy.’