Phil Collins Accuses Ex-Wife of Fraud in Multi-Million Legal Battle

Phil Collins and his legal battle with ex-wife Orianne Cevey continues with the legendary singer-songwriter accusing Cevey of fraud related to the $40 million sale of their Miami mansion.

The drama between Collins and Cevey has been going on for months. It began when Collins attempted to kick Cevey out of their Miami mansion in October 2021 after she suddenly remarried in August 2020 while in Las Vegas. Collins and Cevey were married from 1999 to 2008. Their divorce resulted in Cevey receiving a massive settlement just shy of $47 million. Cevey would marry a second time to Charles Mejjati, but they divorced in 2016, and Cevey got back together with Collins soon after.

Cevey's marriage in August 2020 was seemingly out of nowhere and she told Collins "she was just traveling to Las Vegas for business." (Page Six reported just last week that Cevey picked her new husband, 32-year-old Thomas Bates, from a male escort website where he described himself as a "sexy intellectual." There was reportedly no pre-nup between Cevey and Bates.)

Later in October 2021, Collins filed a lawsuit against Cevey and accused her and her new husband of "an armed occupation and takeover" of the mansion after they changed alarm codes, blocked surveillance cameras and hired armed security guards to patrol the mansion's grounds. Cevey and Bates have reportedly bought a new home nearby following Collins selling the Miami mansion for $40 million.

In a new report from Page Six, "Collins’ legal team is attempting to prove that Cevey has no rights to the proceeds of the house...Collins’ lawyers said in documents that, in a 2016 court filing, Cevey claimed she was 'mentally incapable' of understanding a divorce settlement — from her second husband, Charles Mejjati — but that she changed her tune in 2020. According to court papers, Cevey claimed that she went ahead with that divorce settlement voluntarily because Collins had promised her half of their shared Miami house if she split from Mejjati...Collins denies promising her half of the proceeds from the house."

Furthermore, Collins' legal team filed in new court documents, "[Cevey] 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, [Cevey] 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."