After a legal dustup with his ex-wife (and her new husband), veteran English rocker Phil Collins has sold a posh estate in Miami Beach, Fla., for $39.25 million, a wee bit under its unquestionably elephantine though clearly quite realistic $40 million price tag.
The now 70-year-old Genesis drummer/singer was married in 1999, for the third time, to Swiss-born jewelry designer Orianne Cevey. They had a couple of kids before they divorced in 2008 and Cevey was granted a then record-breaking cash payout of nearly $47 million. Alas, life sometimes takes unexpected twists and, in the case of Collins and Cevey, a U-turn. After Cevey was married and divorced a second time, to real estate developer Charles Fouad Mejjati Alami, she and Collins reunited sometime after Collins had shelled out $33 million over the summer of 2015 for a celeb-pedigreed waterfront estate along one of the most prestigious roads in Miami Beach. Enshrouded in a lush tangle of tropical foliage, the 1.2-acre spread and its more than 11,000-square-foot mansion was owned for a few years in the early aughts by Jennifer Lopez, who pocketed a cool $4.4 million dollars when she sold up in 2005 for $13.9 million.
The relationship between Collins and Cevey eventually soured for a second time. Cevey remained in the Miami Beach residence and, at some point, moved her now third husband, Thomas Bates, into the house. As recounted in a couple of juicy reports in The Real Deal last fall, the “Sussudio” and “In the Air Tonight” singer decided to sell the estate but ran up against the wishes of his newly married ex-wife who claimed that Collins had promised her a 50% stake in the North Bay Road residence. Things got messy. In legal filings Collins alleged Cevey Collins Mejjati Alami Bates changed the security codes, covered up surveillance cameras and hired armed guards to patrol the property. In a statement to TRD, Cevey Collins Mejjati Alami Bates’s attorney said that’s all a bunch of poppycock — though in somewhat more legal terms — and that instead of a “Trumpian disinformation campaign” Collins should “honor the commitments he made to Orianne when they moved in together.”
Whatever discussions were had or (alleged) commitments honored since those reports last fall, the house has now been sold and Cevey Collins Mejjati Alami Bates and her new husband have, presumably, packed up and moved on.