For the first time in nearly two years, Phil Collins and his ex-wife Orianne Cevey have met - and he is accusing her of "committing fraud."
Cevey, 48, has sued the 71-year-old superstar for a portion of the revenues from the huge Miami Beach waterfront mansion they previously shared and which he sold for $40 million in January 2021.
The ex couple met online Wednesday in front of a judge in the latest round of the dispute. Collins' legal team is attempting to establish that Cevey has no claim to the house's earnings. The ex-partners did not communicate with one another.
Collins' attorneys stated in court records that Cevey initially claimed in a 2016 court file that she was "mentally incapable" of comprehending a divorce settlement - from her second husband, Charles Mejjati - but changed her tune in 2020. Cevey stated in court documents that she agreed to the divorce settlement voluntarily because Collins offered her half of their joint Miami home if she divorced Mejjati.
Cevey asserts that she was "unable to comprehend what she was signing because she was severely medicated and in excruciating pain" following spinal and neck surgery that left her largely paralyzed and unable to walk.
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Collins denies offering her a share of the house's revenues.
Cevey claims in remarks included in the current lawsuit that Collins advised her to move in with him and that he would "take care" of her. Between 1999 and 2008, the two were previously married. From 2008 to 2017, she was married to investment banker Mejjjati, but reconciled with Collins in 2016. They then reconciled in 2020, at which point she married Thomas Bates.
Cevey allegedly chose Bates, whom she divorced in December 2021, from a male escort website where he advertised himself as a "beautiful intellectual."
The latest filing, which refers to Collins' ex by her married name of Bates, accused, "There are literally dozens of additional irreconcilable conflicts between Mrs. Bates' position in this case and her pleadings, financial affidavit, and other documents filed in her 2016 divorce from her former husband Charles."
Representatives at Cevey are yet to make a comment.
Collins' legal team, lead by prominent Palm Beach divorce attorney Jeffrey Fisher, also alleged that forensic accountants revealed Cevey did not disclose a vested interest in the home they shared.
In the latest filing, Collins' legal team is claiming that "Mrs. Bates either committed a fraud on the divorce court which heard her divorce [from Mejjati] or she is committing a fraud on this court ... In her 2016 divorce, Mrs Bates filed a financial affidavit which did not list her interest in the LLC [that owned the Miami Beach home] even though in this case she claims she had an enforceable oral agreement dating back to April 2015 entitling her to half of the LLC, which owned roughly $40 million piece of property. Likewise, she testified in the divorce case that the [home] was Phil Collins house, not hers."
Cevey married Bates, 32, in a secret Vegas wedding in 2020 and then relocated him to the Genesis singer's Miami Beach estate while Collins was in Europe.
This is a nasty development on the case, especially it's on top of the fact that Collins is now reportedly getting weaker and weaker.
Last year, he has left fans concerned after he admitted in an interview that he can "barely hold a drumstick" in one of his hands.
This year, fans showed him barely able to stand when he performed with his Genesis band - reportedly for the last time.
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