Phil Collins Resolves Long-Standing Dispute with Paul McCartney After Decades of Tension

Phil Collins has put an end to a decades-long feud with Paul McCartney, sharing details of their reconciliation during an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Friday.

The renowned musician recounted an incident from 2002 during rehearsals for the Queen’s Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace. Collins described bringing a rare first-edition Hunter Davies book about The Beatles—gifted to him by Jill, Lily’s mother—to have McCartney sign it. While the Beatle obliged, Collins recalled McCartney making a comment to his then-wife Heather Mills, referring to him as “our little Phil” in a mocking tone.

Collins admitted his immediate reaction was less than charitable, thinking, “You arsehole.” Though he acknowledged he may have taken the remark more personally than intended, he expressed these feelings candidly in his 2016 memoir when speaking with The Sunday Times.

Years later, the tension resurfaced when McCartney reached out after learning that Collins was organizing a charity auction for the King’s Trust, asking fellow musicians for donated memorabilia. During their phone conversation, McCartney addressed the lingering issue directly.

“He said, ‘While we’re on the phone,’ and I thought, oh, here we go,” Collins recalled. “So he said, ‘What is all this about?’ I said, ‘I wish I’d never said it, Paul, I wish I’d never said it.’ He said, ‘I thought we were good, you know.'”

The decades-old disagreement was quickly resolved. “So we kissed and made up,” Collins said. “I said I was sorry… Obviously this had been bugging him because he likes to be liked, as we all do, you know, and maybe him more than some other people. But we all like to be liked. And I understand that. And we kissed and made up.”

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In a separate revelation to The Sunday Times in August, Collins shared that he nearly died in 2024 while battling alcohol addiction. He was first hospitalized in Switzerland in November 2023 for alcohol-related complications. After being discharged before Christmas that year, he returned a few weeks later and was placed in intensive care, remaining unconscious for a period. Collins spent seven months recovering from the ordeal and has remained sober since.

“I was very lucky to have come out of that,” Collins told The Sunday Times. “Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”

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