Phil Collins, the British singer and drummer has announced he is retiring from the music business.
“I am stopping so I can be a full time father to my two young sons on a daily basis,” a retiring Phil Collins wrote on his website.
He refers to his two sons, Nicholas and Matthew, with his third wife Orianne Cevey, whom he divorced in 2008.
Collins, who has sold 150 million records over his 40-year career, made the retirement announcement in a bid to clarify recent media speculation, which he said painted him as battling health issues and feeling like an outsider in the music industry.
He said his decision was not down to “dodgy reviews”, “bad treatment in the press” or “because I don’t feel loved”.
Instead, Collins said his announcement was in response to a series of “distorted” articles that had erroneously painted him as “a tormented weirdo”, he added.
“There’s no need for the straitjacket!” joked the 60-year-old, whose hits include In the Air Tonight and Another Day in Paradise.
“I’m not stopping because I don’t fit in, this was proved with “Going Back” … doing incredibly well worldwide. I’m not stopping so I can dive full time into my interest for the Alamo.”
That last reference is aimed at comments he has reportedly made claiming to see spirits in modern photos from the fort, and to have spoken with a psychic who told him he was reincarnated from a man who fought in the battle.
But he does have a huge collection of memorabilia from the battle stashed at his Switzerland home.
He said the reports have made him “sound like a tormented weirdo who thinks he was at the Alamo in another life, who feels very sorry for himself, and is retiring hurt because of the bad press over the years.”
None of that is true, he said.
“Some of the things mentioned above have been said by me in various interviews, but said as asides with a smile on my face and in passing. They were not meant to be headlines, they were small parts of a conversation,” he said.
The former frontman of rock band Genesis, Collins went on to achieve huge success as a solo performer, with his hit albums No Jacket Required and …But Seriously.
Colliins is retiring with seven Grammy awards to his name. He was also the recipient of an Academy award for his soundtrack for the Disney animated film Tarzan.
Last year he topped the UK album chart with Going Back, a collection of Motown and soul covers.