ALISON BOSHOFF: Orianne Cevey is the woman Phil Collins paid for...

Their reunion was a love story that – to borrow a sentence – was against all odds.

Even their kids were stunned when Phil Collins and Orianne Cevey announced in late 2015 that they would try their romance all over again.

The couple divorced in 2008 – at a cost of £ 25 million for Collins, a record amount at the time. Then he slumped into belly alcoholic excesses that proved almost fatal. Orianne continued to marry, but as soon as that marriage ended, she and Collins were reunited.

There was even talk of Collins – at the time a frail figure who walked with a stick since he sprained his neck on the Genesis Reunion Tour in 2007 – could go so far, the bling-loving Swiss glamor tomcat 23 Years to remarry his junior.

She purred that she already thought she was married.

“I’ll call Phil again now, my husband,” she said. “We’re so close that it doesn’t matter whether we’re married or not, but we’re determined to get married a second time one day.”

However, it turns out that her romance has collapsed again – bitterly.

Orianne, 46, a bubbly presence on the Miami social scene, all diamonds, handbags and designer labels, lives in her £ 25million waterfront mansion.

She is said to have changed all security codes. Collins, 69, is now ready to file a legal eviction notice against her today after setting a 3pm deadline for her departure last Friday.

What’s unusual is that she is said to have married another man this August after her romance with Collins ran out of steam during the lockdown. It is reported that she tied the knot with a Thomas Bates in Las Vegas after telling Collins that she was leaving town “on business.”

Orianne, 46, a bubbly presence on the Miami social scene, all diamonds, handbags and designer labels, lives in her £ 25 million waterfront mansion

She is reportedly asking for more money on top of her 2008 divorce deal before leaving the house – but friends of drummer and singer Collins, who is worth £ 130 million, have said he won’t give her a single penny.

She also reportedly threatened to reveal personal information about Collins.

Your lawyer Frank Maister confirmed yesterday that legal action has been taken. He told me, “We’re going to deal with Mr. Collins in the courthouse, not the gossip column.”

But what could have gone wrong?

Throughout the spring and early summer, the couple continued to work together to support their charity, the Little Dreams Foundation. In an interview with a local newspaper, she referred to herself as “Orianne Collins”.

The couple divorced in 2008 – at a cost of £ 25 million for Collins, a record amount at the time

However, a close associate of Collins who has recently spent time with him tells me, “He did everything in his heart and soul to make it work for her.

In the last year he devoted himself entirely to her. He called their romance his “last relationship”. It was his intention that this should be forever.

‘There were some people on his team who were very skeptical of their motives. But he’s a very loyal person and just wanted to give it a try. ‚

However, it seems that there have been insurmountable issues in the relationship since they started picking up the threads again in 2015.

The most obvious of these is what in the world is one of the most quiet and withdrawn pop personalities in America’s vibrant nightlife capital, best known for cocaine and flashy use.

Orianne had moved to Miami in 2011 with her second husband, businessman Charles Mejjati, and their children. They had another boy together and lived in a £ 7 million house.

Collins had struggled to be separated from the children who had lived in Switzerland ten minutes away from him but were now ten hours by plane.

After missing much of his older kids’ upbringing during his tour – he has two children, Joely and Simon, in their forties, from his first marriage and a daughter, actress Lily Collins, from his marriage to Jill Tavelman – hated he thought of being absent again.

In the meantime, Orianne was operated on for pinched nerves in her back, which went catastrophically wrong and left her temporarily paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

Collins flew to Miami to help her recover. He was one of her first visitors.

At the same time, her marriage to Mejjati began to break up. In court records, Mejjati said Orianne turned him over for Collins when it became clear that reconciliation was possible.

In June 2015, Collins bought a Miami mansion that previously belonged to Jennifer Lopez. The 12,000 acre property has a dock and views of Biscayne Bay.

Orianne would swim in the big pool, her son Andreas, now nine, also moved in and called Collins ‘Mr Phil’. At the end of that summer, he and Orianne were an object again, and she and Mejjati began divorce proceedings.

In January 2016, Collins commented, “We went back because we realized we’d made a mistake. Many people do not have this chance or do not give themselves this chance.

Then he slumped into belly alcoholic excesses that proved almost fatal. Orianne continued to marry, but as soon as that marriage ended, she and Collins were reunited

“Our young sons Matthew and Nicholas are like a dog with two tails. I mean, they are just so happy. They have their mom and dad back together so it’s a good place to be here right now. ‚

However, Collins, who was born in Hounslow, was never at home in Miami.

“I don’t particularly like Miami,” he sighed this year. “I live here because the children are here and I go where they go.”

The couple also lived a completely different life: “She goes out and does things with her friends. I can’t do anything with any of this.

“I don’t go to bed late: 9.30am, 10pm. Sometimes she doesn’t come back until one or two in the morning. ‚

He is also in poor health, has type 2 diabetes, is deaf in one left ear after decades of traveling, and nerve damage from surgery has left him with a condition called foot drops.

This makes it difficult to get up, let alone walk. He also has nerve damage in his hands so he can no longer play the drums.

Collins seldom drinks from a late alcohol abuse brush that nearly killed him.

He ended up in intensive care with acute pancreatitis after vodka binges. He once went on vacation to the Turks and Caicos Islands with his sons and drank so much that he had to be flown to New York.

Orianne and Collins met in 1994 when she was 21 years old and he was 44 years old. He was about to part ways with second wife Jill Tavelman – he infamously faxed her expressing his anger over custody and access regulations – and Orianne was hired to translate for him on a European tour.

They were married in 1999 and settled in the village of Begnins in Switzerland. But within 15 months of their second son arriving in December 2004, it was over. Collins later admitted he was a bit of a bastard for Orianne when she suffered from postnatal depression after giving birth to Matthew. Orianne left – although she still owns the former marriage home for £ 45 million.

Collins was single again and said, “I would wake up, turn on the television, and have a glass of wine. I’ve been spending way too much time horizontally. It started to be bad for my body. ‚

He stopped drinking alcohol for three years after the treatment. Now he only has an occasional glass of wine.

It seems that there was always a need for Orianne. He said in 2010: “I’d rather be married and I think Orianne feels the same way. Orianne and I are still in love and I don’t really know why we got divorced. ‚

She believed that the second time they would see them together forever. She said, “It’s different this time. When you first fall in love there is passion and excitement. But the second time it’s more thoughtful and mature. ‚

And yet they are back. It seems that the frail Phil Collins is about to add Heartbreak to his long list of illnesses.