Lily Collins Admits 'Sadness & Anger' Over Alcoholic Dad Phil's Abandonment
'It felt as if he were completely gone,' the actress confesses.
March 8 2017, Published 11:18 p.m. ET
Lily Collins' relationship with her famous father has been rocky, to say the least.
In her new book, Unfiltered, the actress, 28, claims she rarely saw rocker dad Phil, 66, after her parents' divorce when she was just 5 years old.
"My dad moved from our home in England to Switzerland, where he stayed for more than 20 years," she writes in the tell-all. "He may have still been alive, but most of the time it felt as if he were completely gone."
"I knew he loved me, yet he wasn't physically around to tell me."
Later, in a heartfelt letter addressed to her father, Lily admits she felt "sadness and anger" in their relationship.
"I accept and honor the sadness and anger I felt toward the things you did or didn't do, did or didn't give me," she says.
But, she claims she forgives him for "not always being there," and his many other "mistakes."
Presumably some of his mistakes stemmed from his longtime hard-drinking habit, which Lily discusses in detail.
"His battle with alcoholism, and my fear that he wouldn't survive, forever altered my own relationship with drinking," she claims, adding that she never imbibes to excess.
She says she noticed her father's drinking had become a major problem in her early 20's.
"I was constantly afraid something would happen to my dad," she writes. "No matter what I said or how much I expressed my concerns to him, the drinking continued…I was convinced that one day I would wake up to a phone call from halfway across the world saying that it had finally gone too far."
Thankfully, Phil has now been sober for years, she confirms.
After a wild life, the former Genesis drummer has admitted to suffering from pancreatitis, and even underwent electroshock therapy for chronic nerve pain earlier this year.
However, he is now in such strong health, he is touring Europe this summer.
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