Phil Collins has seemingly reignited his long-running feud with Paul McCartney – suggesting that the Beatles legend was behind him being taken out of a documentary.
The spat between the two dates back over 20 years ago, when the singer, drummer and Genesis member was allegedly on the receiving end of a belittling comment from McCartney when he met him at Buckingham Palace.
Collins opened up about the supposed incident in 2016, saying that he approached McCartney and his then-wife Heather Mills at the palace in 2002 and asked them to sign a “first edition of The Beatles by Hunter Davies”.
“I said, ‘Hey Paul, do you mind signing this for me?’ And he said, ‘Oh Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan,’ Collins claimed. “And I thought, ‘You fuck. You fuck’. Never forgot it.”
“He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he makes you feel [like], ‘I know this must be hard for you because I’m a Beatle. I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.’”
Collins later added: “He’s been in touch about it because he was upset. I certainly didn’t get any flowers from him; I got more of a ‘Let’s just get on with our lives.’”
Since then, the two seemed to have put the feud to one side. In 2018, Phil Collins announced details of a huge, 59-track box set that featured the Beatles star, and earlier this summer he said that he “wish[ed]” that he never spoke publicly about the feud – particularly as they had now “made up” (via Music Radar).
At that time, it was also confirmed that McCartney agreed to donate some memorabilia to King’s Trust charity auction, which was organised by the iconic drummer.
Now though, it looks like the feud could come back again, as Collins has made a sly quip, suggesting that McCartney could be the reason why a mention of him was taken out of a Beatles documentary.
Speaking at a Q&A in London with Steven Wilson to celebrate 45 years of his 1981 album ‘Face Value’, Collins shared that he was originally mentioned in the The Beatles Anthology documentary – which originally aired on ITV but has since been re-released on Disney+.
He said that in the original 1995 cut of the documentary, there was a reference from George Harrison about his cover of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, which was released on ‘Face Value’. He also added that while he was thrilled to see the reference in the documentary, he noticed that it has now been “taken out” of the footage.
“The one feather in my cap, which I’ll never forget, was with The Beatles Anthology….the three got the tapes out of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. And they were playing it on the multi-track,” he said (via The Mirror).
“I thought, ‘The Beatles mentioned my name’,” he added. “I went back to watch it recently and they’d taken it out. It’s not there anymore… I don’t know, maybe McCartney didn’t like it.”
Paul McCartney has not publicly responded to the comments made by Collins.
Last year, the re-released documentary was given a four-star review from NME, which read: “This entire rerelease is more than justified by the genuinely eye-opening final episode, which sees the lads work up ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, the Lennon demos put out as Beatles tracks alongside the original documentary.”
In other Paul McCartney news, the artist recently shared an update on the film adaptation of his children’s book High In The Clouds, sharing that the work that Celine Dion has done on the project has left him feeling “blown away”.
He also dropped his new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane‘ earlier this year – his first solo record since 2020’s ‘McCartney III’, and featuring his first duet with former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr. Around the time of the album’s release, McCartney sat down with NME to look forward and back on his extraordinary career and reveal if he has plans to retire, and since then, he has also got nominated for a Mercury Prize.
As for Phil Collins, the iconic drummer recently said he has not had a drink in three years after what he described as “dark times” with alcohol addiction.
