Lily Collins has marked her father, Phil Collins, turning 75 by sharing rare photos of the two of them over the years.
On Saturday, the Emily in Paris actor, 36, shared a tender Instagram tribute to her father, who has been struggling with his health in recent months.
A small sequence of images, which included Lily and Phil smiling shoulder to shoulder, grainy Polaroids, and a final photo of a young Lily cradled in her father’s arms, gave a brief look into the pair’s father-daughter relationship.
She captioned the post: ‘Yesterday Dad turned 75 and I feel so grateful to have celebrated together. For all you’ve accomplished, all the joy you’ve brought so many all over the world for ALL these years, all the lessons we’ve learned, all the memories we’ve shared, and all the new ones to come, thank you.
‘I count myself so lucky to have hugged you, laughed with you, and reminisced with you on such a monumental day. Proud is an understatement. Love you to the moon and back again…’
Just days before the birthday, the Against All Odds singer spoke candidly on the BBC podcast Eras with Zoe Ball, detailing the scale of the health challenges that have reshaped his daily life.
A 24-hour live-in nurse, long-term nerve damage, knee and kidney problems, and type 2 diabetes are all among the obstacles Collins is facing.
‘I’ve had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me,’ Collins said, describing a period in which even contracting COVID while hospitalised became part of an ongoing cascade.
The last few years, he admitted, have been ‘difficult, interesting, frustrating.’
But the major shift in his life has allowed him to spend more time with his children, including Lily, who he shares with ex Jill Tavelman.
He also shares kids Nic Collins, 24, and Matthew Collins, 18, with wife Orianne Cevey, as well as Joely Collins, 52, and Simon Collins, 48, with ex Andrea Bertorelli.
He also said on the podcast that his health issues have forced him to make lifestyle changes: ‘I’d probably been drinking too much, so my kidneys were messed up. I wasn’t one of those guys that sort of stayed up all night drinking. I’d drink during the day, but I guess I had too much of it.
In 2022, those realities culminated in his final performance with Genesis at London’s O2 Arena, after which he officially stepped away from drumming and touring.
‘I’ve spent all my life playing drums,’ he later said in the documentary Phil Collins: Drummer First. ‘To suddenly not be able to do that is a shock.’
Collins also told MOJO last year that illness has drained not just his physical ability to play, but his hunger to create.
‘I keep thinking I should go downstairs to the studio and see what happens,’ he said. ‘But I’m not hungry for it anymore.’
For fans raised on Phil’s thunderous fills and era-defining hooks, that admission is pretty heartbreaking.
But Lily’s tribute suggests another reading: that after decades of motion, slowing down can also be a form of grace.
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