Phil Collins has ruled out performing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year, and has touched on the ongoing strain of the health battles that have plagued him for years.
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The former Genesis drummer has been suffering from health issues in recent years, following a spinal injury back in 2007. At Genesis’ final shows in 2022, he performed from a chair while his son Nic took on drum duties.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Friday (May 22), Collins offered an update, saying he was “healthier now” than he had been for a while. “The last 18 months has been fine,” he said. “Before that, not so good.
“Everything health-wise caught up with me at the same time. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but everything is fine now.”
“I had problems with my knee, which I had for a while but I played through it, I toured through it,” he continued. “But eventually I had to have a knee operation and I had to have it done five times because it either kept getting infected or it broke.”
Phil chatted with Charlotte Gallagher this morning on @BBCBreakfast, discussing his Rock Hall induction, Live Aid memories and more.
The full interview is available to watch on BBC Breakfast and @BBCNews today. pic.twitter.com/Eu2eywZVD1
— Phil Collins (@PhilCollinsFeed) May 22, 2026
Collins was then asked about the prospect of future live performances, to which he replied: “I can’t really see it happening, but I’m healthier now than I have been for quite a while.”
He is set to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, which will be his second since he was previously honoured as a member of Genesis in 2010. Speaking about November’s the induction ceremony, Collins said: “I mean, this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame thing, they asked me if I would perform and I said no, [because] you’ve got to be match fit to do something like that.
“You can’t just go onstage – you have to rehearse, and by that point if you’ve not been singing then your voice is going to be shot, and then that’s not going to be good, so I’d rather not do it.
“But whether I’d go out again, I would contemplate, yes.”
It comes after Dennis DeYoung hit out at the Rock Hall last year, saying many deserving musicians have been overlooked or made to wait “so long” to be inducted. “Making so many musicians wait until they [are] either incapacitated or dead is shameful,” he said back in November.
As for Collins, back in January he spoke to Zoe Ball on BBC’s Eras podcast, giving fans an update on his health after revealing that he has had a “difficult, frustrating few years”.
Last year, Collins shut down unfounded rumours that he was being placed under hospice care and “on his deathbed”. It is unclear where the rumours originated, and no evidence was shared to support the claims.
At the time, Collins’ team said he had been hospitalised for knee surgery. Collins went on to reveal that he has undergone five surgeries on his knee and now has one “that works” and “I can walk, albeit with assistance, you know, crutches or whatever”.
Phil Collins released “Do You Remember” as a single in April 1990.
📹 Performed live at the Waldbühne in Berlin – Seriously Live! Tour 1990
Listen: https://t.co/n5nEeozW3n pic.twitter.com/9FFYm0rA3p
— Phil Collins (@PhilCollinsFeed) April 3, 2026
Collins also revealed that he recently celebrated two years of sobriety, adding: “It’s just been a difficult, interesting, frustrating last few years… but it’s alright now.”
He went on: “I enjoyed coming off tour. Coming off the road… I thought, right, I’m gonna do all those things that I couldn’t do.”
Collins said he began drinking during the day, adding: “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.”
He said that aside from being back to being “totally mobile and healthy”, he would like to go into the studio and “have a fiddle about and see if there’s more music… you’ve gotta start doing it to see if you can do it”.
That comes after Collins previously said he is “not hungry” enough to make any new music in February 2025.
Prior to that, Collins shared an update on his health through the documentary Drummer First in 2024, though it had been recorded two years prior. In that clip, he was seen talking to popular YouTube drumming channel Drumeo, where he shared that he was still adjusting to not being able to drum anymore, and said that he’d rather take time away from the kit than be unable to play like he did before. “If I can’t do what I did as well as I did it, I’d rather relax and not do anything,” he said.
“If I wake up one day and I can hold a pair of drumsticks, then I’ll have a crack of it. But I just feel like I’ve used up my air miles,” he added. “It’s still kind of sinking in a bit… I’ve spent all my life playing drums. To be suddenly not be able to do that is a shock.”
“If I wake up one day and I can hold a pair of drumsticks, then I’ll have a crack of it. But I just feel like I’ve used up my air miles,” he added. “It’s still kind of sinking in a bit… I’ve spent all my life playing drums. To be suddenly not be able to do that is a shock.”
This wasn’t the first time that Phil Collins had shared an update with fans and revealed his ongoing struggles to perform. Back in 2021, he revealed that he could “barely hold a stick” due to health issues.
