Not everyone in the music industry gets along – even when they are two of the most recognisable figures in British rock.
Back in 2016, Phil Collins revealed that his first meeting with Sir Paul McCartney, a musician he had long admired, was anything but the dream encounter he imagined.
The ‘In The Air Tonight’ singer opened up about the experience in an interview with The Sunday Times and later with NME. Collins, who had built a career as one of the world’s most successful solo artists and as drummer and frontman of Genesis, said his feelings towards McCartney changed after their first encounter at Buckingham Palace in 2002.
The occasion was a grand one – the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations – and Collins, then in his early 50s, was working at the event.
“I met him when I was working at the Buckingham Palace party back in 2002,” Collins recalled. “McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of The Beatles by Hunter Davies, and I said, ‘Hey Paul, do you mind signing this for me?’”
The response, however, wasn’t what Collins expected. “He said, ‘Oh Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan,’” Collins told the paper. “And I thought, ‘You fk, you fk.’ Never forgot it.”
The remark left Collins stunned. McCartney, he explained, had been one of his musical heroes – someone whose work with The Beatles helped shape Collins’ own love for songwriting and performance.
But the comment, as he saw it, carried an air of condescension. “He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he makes you feel… [like], ‘I know this must be hard for you, because I’m a Beatle’.”
“‘I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.’”
Collins admitted that McCartney later reached out to him after the incident, but said the response was more dismissive than conciliatory.
“I certainly didn’t get any flowers from him,” he told NME. “I got more of a ‘Let’s just get on with our lives.’ If people don’t tell people that sometimes their attitude could be a bit better then you’re not gonna get any better.”