Another popular misconception surrounding Phil Collins is that he divorced his second wife by sending her a fax. Collins has had a variety of health problems in the last decade including losing his hearing in his right ear and dislocating vertebrae in his neck, which ultimately made it so he could no longer play the drums or piano. Despite having had to pay out around $84 million in divorces, today Phil Collins’ net worth is still estimated to be well over $300 million and he states he still is open to marrying again. This makes a divorce settlement average of just shy of $4.5 million per year married, not including whatever they spent while he was married to them. While I couldn’t find any figures on how much he paid out for the first divorce, in the latter two, he’s had to pay out and estimated $84 million in divorce settlements resulting from a grand total of 19 married years, between those latter two wives. Collins has been married three times and divorced three times since 1975. While Collins says it’s just coincidence, he once appeared in BBC ‘s Top of the Pops where he sang In the Air Tonight with a paint bucket and brush near the piano (in reference to his wife having an affair with someone who was doing paint work for him). Before devoting himself more or less exclusively to music, Phil Collins was a child actor, appearing in various rolls, including: playing The Artful Dodger in the London production of Oliver! an extra in the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night one of the extras in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and various other minor roles. And after I’ve got a verse and a chorus or after I’ve got something that I like, I will then sing into a microphone anything that I think.” Because 70-80% of the lyrics I write, I sing. “I gotta explain really the way I write lyrics. Unlike most artists who take lyrics, whether they wrote them or someone else did, and then put them to music, Collins typically does the opposite. Interestingly, this isn’t the only song Phil Collins wrote somewhat spontaneously. It’s so frustrating, ‘cos this is one song out of all the songs probably that I’ve ever written that I really don’t know what it’s about, you know.” And then every time I go back to America the story gets Chinese whispers, it gets more and more elaborate. So what makes it even more comical is when I hear these stories which started many years ago, particularly in America, of someone come up to me and say, ‘Did you really see someone drowning?’ I said, ‘No, wrong’. 
It’s the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation. And the only thing I can say about it is that it’s obviously in anger. When I was writing this, I was going through a divorce. That frightens me a bit, but I’m quite proud of the fact that I sing 99.9 percent of those lyrics spontaneously.” “I don’t know what this song is about. The lyrics you hear are what I wrote spontaneously. I got these chords that I liked, so I turned the mic on and started singing. Rather, he set the basic chords and music and then just started singing whatever came to mind at that given moment. He didn’t write it in the traditional way most musicians write songs. In fact, Phil Collins himself notes that he isn’t really sure what In the Air Tonight is about.
While this makes an interesting story, none of these variations ever happened. Most of these stories include an ending where Phil Collins eventually invites the offending guy to one of Collins’ concerts, giving him a front row seat, then sings In the Air Tonight and reveals to the crowd how this man stood by and let someone die when he could have saved him. However, there was a man that was very close to the drowning victim who just stood there and watched.” He tried to save the man, but was too far away and couldn’t get to the man in time. Phil Collins couldn’t swim, so called out for a guy on a nearby dock to come save his friend, but the guy just sat there and watched while the man drowned.” (One wonders why, in that scenario, he wouldn’t just toss his friend a life jacket or other flotation device from the boat.) Alternatively, “Phil Collins saw a man drowning as he was walking along a beach. Twists on this urban legend include stories such as: “Phil Collins was on a boat with a friend when his buddy fell overboard. Phil Collins did not write the song In the Air Tonight about a guy who could have saved another guy from drowning, but chose not to do so. Myth: Phil Collins wrote “in the air tonight” after a friend of his drowned and a person on shore could have saved him, but didn’t.
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