Phil Collins devastating health diagnosis: Condition means it is impossible for him to play drums or piano

Music legend Phil Collins has revealed he is rarely able to play his treasured drums following a devastating diagnosis. In a new documentary, the 73-year-old Genesis frontman and drumming icon reveals how an injury to vertebrae in his neck has left him with nerve damage, limiting his mobility over the past 15 years.

He is now forced to walk with a cane - and sometimes use a wheelchair - to get around, the star revealed in Phil Collins: Drummer First, a two-hour programme being shown on the YouTube channel of percussion website, Drumeo. In it, Phil shares how decades of bashing the drums has taken a toll on his hands, legs and body, and reveals how he now struggles to get behind the kit.

"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 said. "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 can’t do what I did as well as I did it, I’d rather relax and not do anything."

Although filmed in 2022, Drumeo has only just released the documentary, which includes the star - famed for solo hits including Another Day in Paradise, Two Hearts and In The Air Tonight - detailing how he sees himself a drummer first, before a singer, saying he is "not a singer that plays a bit of drums; I’m more of a drummer that sings a bit".

In the show, Phil's son Nic - who now performs live with Genesis - spoke of how his famous dad needed "big surgery on his neck that stemmed from all those years playing drums and bad posture", and revealed how his father suffers from the condition drop-foot, where one of his feet has no sensation.

Phil last performed with Genesis - alongside bandmates keyboardist Tony Banks and guitarist-bassist Mike Rutherford - at London's O2 Arena in March 2022, where he jokingly told the crowd he will now have to get a "real job". Previously, the star explained how his condition developed after a previous Genesis tour, when he said he "dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands".

He went on: "After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally. Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano."

He also said previous excessive drinking had left him with acute pancreatitis, and that he had been told he would have trouble playing drums in the future. He told a 2016 press conference: "Within months you're drinking vodka from the fridge in the morning and falling over in front of the kids, you know."

He added: "It was something I lived through, and I was lucky to live through it and get through it. I was very close to dying."

In 2013, he quit drinking altogether on the advice of doctors, though he has since told The Mirror he is "quite capable of having two or three glasses of wine, saying goodnight and walking away".