Phil Collins, a rock legend cornered by a shady divorce

Phil Collins has done almost everything in the world of music, drums, songwriter, producer, singer, even actor.

And he has also managed to be considered a rock legend, as well as a knight of the Royal Victorian Order, the oldest and most important in the United Kingdom and a recognition that Queen Elizabeth II personally grants.

Between 1984 and 1989 he topped the Billboard list of American hits eight times, seven as a soloist and one with the band Génesis, of which he was a part between 1970 and 1996 and with them he has continued to make sporadic collaborations since 2007. The awards have not been unrelated to his career: he won seven Grammys, five Brit Awards, an Oscar for best original song for

, and two Golden Globes in the same category for the same creation and for

.

He is also one of the pop artists, along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, who has managed to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

However, neither his professional triumphs nor his love ballads have made his personal life as happy as his musical career has.

He has been married three times, has had five children and his last marriage has become a soap opera that does not lack detail to become a television plot and overshadow any success of its protagonist for a time.

His first marriage to Andrea Bertorelli lasted five years and ended because of an infidelity.

With her he had his children Joely and Simon.

His second marriage to Jill Tavelman - with whom he had his daughter Lily, now a successful actress and with whom he does not have a fluid relationship - lasted for almost 12 years, but began to break down when he met Orianne Cevey in Lausanne, Switzerland, a woman of Thai origin who was 22 years old at the time and with a sweet face that the musician fell in love with while she was in charge of supervising the details of his stay in the country where he had come to give a concert.

Collins was 42 years old and among the legends that circulate about the rock star, a figure that left his wife through a brusque and almost ruthless fax that he sent to his home in Sussex and that quickly leaked to the newspapers: “I am so sick and tired of your attitude, Jill.

I won't be back on Thursday.

I don't expect you to like anything that happened, of course not ... it is you who must be offended that I should choose to be with someone else.

You're the one with the damn problem.

I am in love with Orianne and I want to be with her.

I love my daughter and fly to see her when I have a day off during the week.

This at least keeps us all as happy as possible given the situation. "

He argued that his wife did not answer the phone and that is why he sent him the fax, but his image as a peaceful and romantic man was damaged and his record sales suffered.

He went to Switzerland to live with Orianne Cevey and married her in 1999. But this story has turned out to be the most gruesome of all his love affairs.

They had two children, Nicholas and Mattew, and they seemed happy, but it didn't take long for the differences to appear.

She liked to go out, he preferred to stay home with the children.

They separated in 2006 and Orianne remarried in Las Vegas to a builder, Charles Mejjati, with whom she had another son, Andrea.

The funny thing is that not even the more than 27 million euros that the musician paid for his divorce separated them completely.

His ex-wife became an event organizer in Miami, his new place of residence, for the Collins charity Little Dreams Foundation, opened an exclusive jewelry store in the city ..., and continued to see the musician in the company of his children and of her new husband.

In 2016 Orianne and Phill Collins announced that they were getting back together.

He was then 65 years old, he had retired from music in 2011 due to health problems - he has back ailments and hearing loss - and the chronicles of that time say that in addition to the supposed love that remained between them, in Orianne's decision not it was strange that the economy with Mejjati did not go quite well.

After a bitter divorce from her, the happiness of the second chance with Collins hasn't lasted long either.

They returned to live together in a mansion facing the sea in Miami valued at 33 million dollars, but earlier this month it was known that they had separated again when Collins learned that his wife had married a musician in Las Vegas. 30-year-old Thomas Bates while he was in Europe.

A new husband with whom, according to Collins, she settled in her luxurious home which "they have seized with armed guards and with a show of force."

The couple is back in court and the things they say to each other are not pretty.

Collins claims that the property was purchased through a partnership exclusively his;

she who moved there with her personal possessions from Switzerland, worth $ 10 million, and who opened a joint bank account.

Also that Collins has spied on her by placing cameras throughout the house, even in the most intimate places and that they were placed without her consent.

He also argues that moving house would unbalance Andrea, the son she had with her second husband and whom she admits that Phil Collins has treated like a son, and that she suffers from a “neurological problem that requires daily physical therapy at home, including swimming pool".

While the matter is resolved in court, Orianna and her new husband will remain at Collins' residence and he has been authorized to remove his personal belongings from there.

History promises to continue giving people talk.

As does Collins intending to return on tour with Genesis starting next month.

Not only because of the pandemic but because of the physical conditions in which it is found.

The 69-year-old musician has performed most of the last concerts singing sitting down and without playing the drums because his hearing problems caused by performances without headphones and at high volume have been compounded by two spinal operations that have caused him problems with walking and loss of feeling in the hands.

For the moment, ticket sales continue and the first date will be on November 16 in Dublin with his 18-year-old son Nicholas, on the drums of the shows.