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Phil Collins Says Ex-Wife And Her New Husband Have Taken Over His Miami Mansion In ‘Armed Occupation’
Phil Collins says his former wife Orianne Cevey, along with her new husband Thomas Bates, refuses to leave his $33 million Florida home and has installed armed guards and had the security codes changed.
Musical artist Phil Collins is suing his former wife, alleging she's undertaken an "armed occupation and takeover" of his Florida mansion.
Collins, 69, is currently at loggerheads with ex Orianne Cevey, 46, over his $33 million Miami mansion, according to court documents filed last week and obtained by the Miami Herald.
Collins and Cevey, a Swiss-born jewelry designer, married in 1999 but finalized a divorce deal in 2008 in which Cevey reportedly received $46.7 million. The couple, who share two teenage sons, got back together in 2016, but Cevey dumped the “In the Air Tonight” singer over text back in August and then immediately wed 31-year-old Florida musician Thomas Bates in Las Vegas, where Cevey owns a $1.7 million home, according to the Miami Herald.
Despite the Vegas home, the newlywed couple have apparently decided to stay in Collins’ Miami mansion instead. Collins' attorneys assert in the newly filed legal documents that the singer tried to kick Cevey and Bates out back in August, but they refused to leave. Instead, they allegedly hired four armed guards and changed the security codes for the home.
The lawsuit states that the newlywed couple is “threatening, implicitly and explicitly, to prolong their unlawful occupation of the property through force. [...] An injunction is urgently needed to end an armed occupation and takeover of the Phil Collins home by his ex girlfriend and her new husband, the defendants in the action.”
The music icon's lawyers specify that the home is “100 percent” owned by Collins. They also accuse Cevey of attempting to extort her ex-husband, threatening to release private information about him unless he pays “a preposterous amount of money based on an oral agreement that does not exist,” according to the court papers.
“Mrs. Bates, as she is now known, is trying to shake down Phil Collins for money, and as his attorney and former federal prosecutor, I have zero tolerance for that type of behavior,” Collins’ lawyer Jeffrey Fisher told the Herald. “I’m going to use every legal remedy to get her out of the house.”
Frank Maister, Cevey’s lawyer at least as of last week, told the Miami Herald that "we will deal with Mr. Collins in the courthouse, not the gossip column.”
However, during a 90-minute Zoom court proceeding on Tuesday, Maister was no longer in the picture and Cevey and her husband had a new lawyer, Richarde Wolfe, the Daily Mail reports. Judge Stephanie Silver pointed out that he was the third lawyer the couple had hired in four days. Wolfe argued that Cevey does indeed have some ownership rights in the home and Silver noted that Cevey had filed a counterclaim for $20 million, according to the Daily Mail.
Collins' lawyer expressed concern over valuable belongings he'd left behind at the mansion, including his music collection, artifacts from the Battle of the Alamo and his piano, Page Six reports. All parties agreed to have Collins' belonging or possessions under dispute held in storage until the case is settled, according to the Daily Mail.
Lawyers for both Collins and Cevey have not immediately responded to Oxygen.com’s request for comment
