A judge has ordered Phil Collins’ ex-wife to rein in the ‘scandalous’ personal remarks about the singer’s personal hygiene and sexual performance or risk having her claim to half his Florida mansion thrown out.
Collins and former flame Orianne Cevey have been locked in a bitter eviction battle for months after she secretly wed Thomas Bates, 31, and moved him into the palatial waterfront home she previously shared with the Genesis icon.
Collins owns the $40m property in Miami Beach but 46-year-old Orianne is refusing to leave, claiming she’s entitled to half its value under a ‘verbal cohabitation agreement’.
Their court battle plumbed new depths when Orianne made humiliating comments about her 69-year-old ex in publicly available court documents last month, portraying Collins as a washed-up has-been who turned to booze and painkillers when his voice ‘diminished’.
Collins and former flame Orianne Cevey have been locked in a bitter eviction battle for months after she secretly wed Thomas Bates, 31, and moved him into the palatial waterfront home she previously shared with the Genesis icon.
Collins owns the $40m property in Miami Beach but 46-year-old Orianne is refusing to leave, claiming she’s entitled to half its value under a ‘verbal cohabitation agreement’
But a Miami judge sided with the drummer’s lawyers today after they urged him to strike the offending remarks from the record.
‘What Mrs Bates’ complaint contains is a whole bunch of impertinent, scandalous, immaterial, irrelevant and, frankly, purposely damaging information that is alleged, defamatory information, about Phil Collins,’ his lawyer Brendon Carrington told the court. ‘It has nothing to do with her claim.’
Carrington said it was particularly ‘outrageous’ that Orianne’s filing questioned whether Collins was mentally competent to participate in the court process.
He said the dispute was also preventing Collins from finding a buyer for the sprawling seven-bed property.
Their court battle plumbed new depths when Orianne made humiliating comments about her 69-year-old ex in publicly available court documents last month. The couple pictured in 2016
Orianne submitted her incendiary filing that portrayed Collins as a washed-up has-been who turned to booze and painkillers when his vocal ability ‘diminished’
‘People are reading about it in the press. Nobody wants to come look at a home that’s involved in litigation,’ Carrington told the hearing, held via Zoom.
‘Mrs Bates should have a chance to come back and repeat her claims, but they should come back and plead it without the bogus, immaterial, impertinent, irrelevant information.’
Orianne’s attorney Richard Wolfe said he had already filed an amended version of her breach of contract claim on Tuesday afternoon with the majority of the controversial remarks removed.
‘We don’t bash him as a musician, He’s a world renowned musician, one of my personal favorites. I love his music,’ Wolfe told the proceedings.
The pair married in 1999 and had sons Nicholas, 19, and Matthew, 15, before splitting seven years later
Judge Spencer Eig gave Wolfe a further five days to make sure the amended claim was stripped of everything the court deemed inappropriate.
‘The court grants the motion to strike immaterial, impertinent and scandalous allegations,’ the judge said.
‘If you file the motion tomorrow with all of the same allegations that are not in compliance with the order, then you run the risk of your complaint being dismissed with prejudice.’
Collins’ attorneys further argued that Orianne should be compelled to give a deposition because she was offering a ‘litany of excuses’ while posting social media shots of herself on vacation, riding a jet ski and boxing.
‘They say as one of their excuses in response to our motion to compel is that Mrs Bates is handicapped and that she is subject to daily therapy at the university of Miami? She’s going all around town,’ Carrington fumed.
Judge Eig denied the motion, however, after Wolfe said he would make his client available in late January ahead of a two-day trial.
The headline-grabbing spat appeared to have reached a truce last month when a ‘partial settlement’ was agreed in clear the air Zoom talks between Orianne, Bates and Collins, who is currently in London rehearsing for a Genesis reunion.
The arrangement gave jewelry designer Orianne, who has two sons with Collins, until January to pack her bags and leave while house was put on the market.
Hostilities resumed, however, when Orianne submitted her incendiary filing that portrayed Collins as a washed-up has-been who turned to booze and painkillers when his vocal ability ‘diminished’.
Collins launched his drastic legal action earlier this month ago after calling it quits with Orianne for the second time. The couple pictured in 2018
The In the Air Tonight crooner was ‘usually drunk by mid-morning’, her attorneys alleged, to the point that Collins would fall over and injure himself before checking into the hospital under an alias.
‘By 2019 Philip had lost his talents. He became increasingly depressed, withdrawn and abusive and, following an operation his back, increasingly addicted to anti-depressants and painkillers,’ her filing stated.
‘As Philip’s binge drinking and resulting injuries from falling became worse his mental state, likewise, deteriorated.
‘By 2019, he was incapable of having sex. He stopped showering, brushing his teeth and dressing properly (in fact he did not shower or brush his teeth from 2019 until August 2020 when he vacated the property).’
Collins began to smell and his ‘stench became so pervasive that he became a hermit, refusing to interact personally with any people’, the document went on to allege.
‘He was either incapable or he refused to provide emotional support, love or care for his children or Orianne,’ her attorneys wrote, listing their claims under mock song titles including ‘Not Another Day in Paradise’ and ‘Philip … Sue Sue Sideos’.
The filing provoked an immediate rebuttal from the Collins camp, who described it as ‘a litany of demonstrably false, immaterial, impertinent, scandalous and scurrilous allegations which have nothing to do with the legal claims in this case.’
Despite agreeing to a record $47m divorce settlement they surprised the world in 2016 when they announced they were back together and living in the Miami home, which Collins purchased through an LLC
‘These allegations are included only to further defendants’ plan to deliberately make sensationalized and/or false allegations in an effort to extort money,’ they wrote in their motion to strike.
‘To be clear, these false and scandalous allegations are included only so that they can be delivered by defendants to the media to try to damage Phil Collins’ reputation.’
Collins launched his drastic legal action earlier this month ago after calling it quits with Orianne for the second time.
The pair married in 1999 and had sons Nicholas, 19, and Matthew, 15, before splitting seven years later.
Despite agreeing to a record $47m divorce settlement they surprised the world in 2016 when they announced they were back together and living in the Miami home, which Collins purchased through an LLC.
Orianne claims to have informed Collins about her marriage to Bates after making multiple attempts to talk about their ‘deteriorating relationship’ which she maintains he was unwilling to address
However the relationship ended, seemingly for good, when he discovered Orianne had ‘secretly’ married Bates in Las Vegas on August 2.
According to court filings, the Against All Odds crooner left in a hurry for Switzerland and gave the couple until October 12 to pack their bags and move so he could put the plush property up for sale.
When they failed to leave, Collins sued Orianne for unlawful detainer and forcible entry, accusing the pair of hiring armed guards, covering over security cameras and changing alarm codes to seize the house ‘by a show of force.’
The newlyweds hit back with their own filing, dismissing the allegations as ‘nothing more than a retaliation’ to the new marriage and a ‘shameful story’ that Collins had ‘fabricated’.
Orianne argues that she surrendered a $20m stake in her previous Miami home by getting a ‘quickie divorce’ from her previous husband, Charles Mejjati.
She picked out and jointly furnished the waterfront mansion, paid her share of the bills for five years and had an ‘oral co-habitation agreement’ with Collins that entitled her and their two sons to be there, according to her filing.
Orianne also claims to have informed Collins about her marriage to Bates after making multiple attempts to talk about their ‘deteriorating relationship’ which she maintains he was unwilling to address.
The mother-of-three admits covering over security cameras but alleges that this was because Collins had 20 secret devices installed around the $12,000 sq ft residence to spy on her, including in her bathroom and changing room.