Phil Collins Is Now Suing His Ex-Wife Over “an Armed Occupation and Takeover” of His Mansion
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The breakup between Phil Collins and his ex-wife Orianne Cevey seems to be escalating by the day.
On Saturday, TMZ reported that the legendary musician had broken up with his ex-wife again after reconciling in 2016 following Cevey’s divorce from her second husband, investment banker Charles Mejjati. This time, however, things seem to be officially over between the pair; according to court documents obtained by Vanity Fair, Cevey texted Collins in July telling him that she would “like to try to see if I can be happy again” with another man. After Collins’s enlisted the guidance of his lawyers, his legal team then discovered that Cevey had secretly married 31-year-old businessman Thomas Bates on August 2 and purchased a home for about $1.7 million in Las Vegas in December 2019. As a result, the musician asked his ex to permanently move out of his Miami home, giving her a deadline of Monday, October 12—a deadline she failed to meet.
That’s why the singer is now suing Cevey for allegedly refusing to vacate the property, which is worth $40 million, according to the court documents. Collins filed an injunction on Thursday against his ex, with a hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon. The filing accuses Cevey and “her new husband” of “an armed occupation and takeover” of Collins’s home after they “changed the alarm codes, blocked the surveillance cameras, barred entry by vendors and the real estate agent, and are threatening, implicitly and explicitly, to prolong their unlawful occupation of the property through force.” The documents also allege that they’ve hired “three or four heavily armed individuals” to guard the home, citing as evidence screenshots of the security company’s Instagram Stories, which they say show armed security officers inside and around the home. She’s also allegedly created a “hostile environment” for staff hired by Collins and, according to TMZ’s sources, “is threatening to release false and embarrassing accusations about him unless he renegotiates their 2008 divorce settlement.”
But Collins seems to have no plans to succumb to his ex’s demands as he believes she’s wasted the original settlement, in part on a string of bad investments, according to TMZ’s sources. When the couple—who have two teenage sons together, Nicholas and Matthew—finalized their divorce in 2008, Collins reportedly paid her a $46.68 million divorce settlement, said to be the biggest in British legal history at the time.
In an exclusive statement to Vanity Fair, Collins’s lawyer Jeffrey D. Fisher said, “We got a letter from [Cevey]’s attorney dated September 20th that was a blatant effort to shakedown Phil and, as a former federal prosecutor, I have zero tolerance for that. So, now, we’re going to fully enforce the law against her.”
A representative for Cevey said she “has nothing to add at this moment.”
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