Phil Collins has made it abundantly clear he is no fan of Donald Trump.
The music icon took aim at the president during a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan for “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” conducted ahead of Collins’ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in November.
Trump’s “whole manner is unattractive,” Collins told Morgan.
Watch the full interview on YouTube.
Presidents have historically been “eloquent and elegant,” so “even if you don’t agree with them, you still respect them,” Collins said. “But when someone like Trump is as nasty as he is, you end up feeling dislike for him.”
via Associated Press / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Trump “plays politics like a businessman, and it’s not like really a business at all,” he continued. “It’s diplomacy, and it’s sometimes you can lose but still come out winning […] but he sees everything as a deal, won or lost.”
The former Genesis frontman went on to describe the current era as a “very scary time” and raised concerns about whether Trump could seek to remain in power beyond the two presidential terms permitted under the Constitution.
Collins, who opened up earlier this year about nearly dying in 2024 after years of alcohol abuse took a devastating toll on his health, said he wouldn’t be shocked if Trump tried “to overrule the two-term deal.”
Morgan said he doubted Trump would do so, but noted that his longtime association with the president had taught him “never to be surprised by him.”
Collins suggested even Trump’s own supporters could view an attempt to remain in office beyond two terms as a step too far, saying: “But he’s kind of training JD Vance to sort of be Trump 2. I’m not a political person, but I do see right from wrong.”
Collins’ contempt for Trump is nothing new.
In October 2020, his representatives sent Trump a cease-and-desist letter demanding that it stop playing his music at campaign rallies.
Collins “wants no affiliation whatsoever with The President or the Trump campaign,” the letter read.
Trump’s campaign had played Collins’ 1981 hit “In the Air Tonight,” including at a rally held amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The cease-and-desist letter argued that its use was “particularly inappropriate since it was apparently intended as a satirical reference to Covid-19.”