The ex-wife of Phil Collins claims he was a heavy drinker who was addicted to prescription drugs and went months without bathing or brushing his teeth.
In a court filing in Miami this week, Orianne Bates alleged Collins would frequently “fall down from the combination of prescription medicines and excessive alcohol.” Last year, the singer “became increasingly depressed, withdrawn, abusive and following an operation on his back, increasingly addicted to antidepressants and painkillers,” she claimed.
Collins and Bates were married from 1999 to 2006 but reunited a decade later. They split up this past August when Collins learned she married another man. Bates refused to leave, forcing Collins – who is currently in the UK – to seek an eviction.
On Oct. 30, Bates and her husband agreed to move out in mid-January but she is suing Collins for half the value of the 10,769-square-foot mansion, which was once owned by Jennifer Lopez. It was listed at $40 million U.S.
Bates, 46, alleged in her court filing that Collins, 69, “stopped showering, brushing his teeth and dressing properly.” She had no choice but to distance herself from the Genesis star because his “stench became so pervasive that he became a hermit, refusing to interact personally with any people.”
Collins, she claimed, was “incapable of having sex” and his alcohol and drug use became so bad he fell and hit his head “on multiple occasions.”
In his 2016 autobiography, Collins said he had been sober for three years.
Lawyers for Collins countered that Cevey’s documents are “a litany of demonstrably false, immaterial, impertinent, scandalous and scurrilous allegations” that are “included only so that they can be delivered … to the media to try to damage Phil Collins’ reputation in an effort to extort money.