Cocooned in a newborn bubble at their £3 million mansion in trendy Pasadena, just outside Los Angeles, Lily Collins and her film director husband Charlie McDowell have been laying low this week.
Lily, 35, has been on a few short walks with their daughter, Tove Jane, whose surprise birth – by an unnamed surrogate – was announced on February 1.
No one could blame them for wanting to shut out the rest of the world. The backlash following their shock announcement was severe.
There were questions about why Emily In Paris star Lily hadn’t carried – or perhaps couldn’t carry – their baby, with some critics referring to surrogacy as ‘rich people renting women’s bodies’.
The outcry prompted Charlie, 41, to call out ‘unkind comments’ and ‘hateful words’, telling his social media followers: ‘It’s OK not to know why someone might need a surrogate to have a child.’
Chastened, the comments stopped, though the debate – about the ethics of surrogacy, which is much more tightly-controlled in the UK than in the US – continues apace online.
Standing firmly by her daughter’s side, quietly supporting her through the furore, helping her navigate the newborn haze – and, of course, keeping every secret safe – is Lily’s mother, Jill.
The lesser-known of Lily’s parents, Jill Tavelman, 68, was rock star Phil Collins’ second wife. She and Phil, drummer and later lead singer of Genesis, separated acrimoniously – after an argument, which culminated in a fax – in 1994, when Lily was just five years old.
Jill Tavelman and Phil Collins separated acrimoniously – after an argument, which culminated in a fax – in 1994, when Lily was just five years old
Standing firmly by her daughter’s side, quietly supporting her through the furore, helping her navigate the newborn haze – and, of course, keeping every secret safe – is Lily’s mother, Jill
Lily, 35, has been on a few short walks with their daughter, Tove Jane, whose surprise birth – by an unnamed surrogate – was announced on February 1
The 35-year-old Emily in Paris actress and her husband Charlie McDowell welcomed the bundle of joy, their first child, via surrogate
The split had a profound effect on Lily, and she has spoken often of how it led to teenage years fraught with angst, unhealthy relationships and a crippling eating disorder.
After the divorce, Jill got sole custody of Lily and set up home, quietly, back in her native Los Angeles. Phil, meanwhile, moved to Switzerland where he embarked on a third – and ultimately disastrous – marriage to Swiss translator, Orianne Cevey, 24 years his junior.
Today, Jill runs an antiques shop, called Waverly on Doheny, in West Hollywood, just 30 minutes from Lily’s front door.
It’s an eccentric place, with old fairground signs, mannequins and vintage posters in the window, and, when the Mail visited this week, new grandmother, Jill, was sitting in the back, reading a book.
Three sweet photographs of Jill and Lily, with matching smiles, take pride of place on the wall.
Happy and relaxed, Jill is thrilled by the arrival of her first grandchild and couldn’t stop smiling, but she didn’t want to comment.
As a grandmother, Jill will be, no doubt, hoping to emulate the role her own mother, Jane Hale, played in Lily’s life. Certainly, Lily has spoken fondly of her beloved ‘Nannie’, a talented dancer, choreographer and 40s pin-up, who died in 2006 at the age of 81. Tove’s middle name is a tribute to her.
Jill once said of their bond: ‘Her talent skipped me and landed in Lily. Every time I look at my daughter I see her clearly. Jane lives on through her and would get such a kick out of her granddaughter following in her footsteps.’
McDowell shared a similar post on his Instagram account with a corresponding caption: ‘Dad mode ❤️’
After the divorce, Jill got sole custody of Lily and set up home, quietly, back in her native Los Angeles
Lily Collins and mother Jill Tavelman at Harmony Gold Theatre on July 27, 2017
For it was they who had to pick up the pieces after Phil called quits on his marriage. In her 2017 autobiography, Unfiltered, Lily admitted that Phil’s absence made her strive for perfection, putting herself under pressure to be his faultless ‘little girl’.
‘Because my dad was often gone, I never wanted to do anything that would make him stay away even longer,’ she wrote. ‘I became extra-careful about what I said and how I said it, afraid he’d think I was angry or didn’t love him. The truth is, I was angry. I missed him and wanted him there.
‘Many of my deepest insecurities stem from issues with my dad. It’s taken me over a decade to resolve some of them (others I’m still resolving) and to finally build up the courage to speak to him.’
Today, Lily is said to be fully reconciled with Phil, now 74 and suffering ill-health, having forgiven him ‘for not being the dad I expected’.
And remarkably, given their turbulent history, Jill and Phil are on good terms, too. In an interview he said he was ‘very proud’ of the fact that he and his ex-wife had remained ‘great friends’, despite their ‘messy break-up’.
And Jill clearly still harbours some affection for her ex-husband, too. In a poignant Instagram post, shared last August on what would have been their 40th wedding anniversary, Jill spoke of her ‘loving memories’ of that ‘bittersweet day’. They’d met during a Genesis tour, at the Rainbow Bar on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip in 1980.
Jill, who was studying to be a teacher at the time, wasn’t fazed by celebrities: her father was a Beverly Hills couturier who dressed the likes of Groucho Marx. Phil asked for her phone number, which he promptly lost, but had his team track her down.
Then, rather than take her on a date, he asked her to accompany him on the rest of his US tour.
The actress, 35, has frequently been by her father’s side including when he accepted his spot on the Hollywood Hall of Fame in 1999
Lily admitted that Phil’s absence made her strive for perfection, putting herself under pressure to be his faultless ‘little girl’
Today, Lily is said to be fully reconciled with Phil, now 74 and suffering ill-health, having forgiven him ‘for not being the dad I expected’
She ditched her teaching course and said yes.
The pair moved to England, and settled in The Old Croft, a six-bedroom, £3.5 million house in the sleepy Surrey town of Shalford. Phil had bought the house with Andrea Bertorelli, his Canadian-born first wife, whom he’d divorced in 1980 after accusing her of having an affair with the decorator – a claim she disputed.
Locals became fond of Jill, and the couple were regulars at the Queen Victoria pub. In 1984, they married at Guildford Registry Office, with a raucous reception attended by music legends Eric Clapton and Robert Plant.
Shortly afterwards, they moved to Loxwood, a village on the border with West Sussex. Jill still owns the house and, despite everything, loves spending time there. ‘My heart belongs in the English countryside,’ she wrote online last summer.
It is there that she, Lily, Charlie, and their dog, Redwood, spend Christmases. Lily, too, has fond memories of growing up in the UK. ‘I would run in the garden, imagining myself to be a fairy and playing with the animals and elves of the woods,’ she said.
But the fairy tale didn’t last. With Phil away on tour, Jill began to realise they had little in common. Then, Phil’s head was turned – first by an old flame, Lavinia Lang, with whom he struck up a six-week affair in 1992.
He confessed all to Jill, sparking ‘terrible shouting matches’ which must have had an impact on Lily, then just three years old. They stayed together for two years, until he met Orianne Cevey, a translator on a Genesis tour.
In 1994 came ‘fax-gate’, when a fax sent by Phil, who was on tour in Frankfurt, to Jill at their Loxwood home, was leaked to a British tabloid. It read: ‘I am so sick and tired of your attitude, Jill. I will not be coming back Thursday … You are the one with the f***ing problem.’
![Lily has previously said that 'many of [her] deepest insecurities stem from issues with [her] dad'](https://i0.wp.com/i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/02/08/20/95009781-14376141-image-m-60_1739048104809.jpg?resize=634%2C605&ssl=1)
Lily has previously said that ‘many of [her] deepest insecurities stem from issues with [her] dad’
Phil Collins, Lily and Jill Tavelman attend the after party for Relativity Media’s ‘Mirror Mirror’ in 2012
Phil has had a tumultuous relationship with Lily, but the pair appear to have healed their rift
The actress has long been open about wanting children; spurred on, perhaps, by a desire to create the stable family unit she lacked as a child
Phil insists he was not ending their relationship by fax, but rather continuing a conversation they’d started face-to-face. He couldn’t get hold of Jill by phone so faxed her from his dressing room instead.
He later admitted he was ‘a bit of a b*****d’ at the time.
Jill and Lily upped sticks back to LA – and the support of Nannie Jane. The family already had a mansion on Sunset Boulevard and a £17 million divorce settlement made life comfortable.
But things weren’t easy. Jill told People magazine in 1994: ‘Lily hasn’t seen her father for two months. She keeps weeping, ‘I want my Daddy.’ Phil sends her faxes, but I know she’d rather hear his voice. Phil doesn’t phone because he has to save his voice for the next day.’
When Lily started school, the other children made fun of her British accent. ‘All I wanted was to fit in, so I started … mimicking how they spoke,’ she writes in her autobiography.
As a teenager, she found herself in a series of ‘toxic’ relationships, dating boys with drink and drug problems, and, aged 16, she developed an eating disorder. Writing about how she became hooked on diet pills and laxatives, Lily admits she was first anorexic and then bulimic, gorging on junk food before sticking a toothbrush down her throat to make herself sick.
‘My throat burned and my oesophagus ached,’ she says. ‘My periods stopped for two years and my life was out of control. I was terrified I had ruined my chances of ever having kids.’
With Jill’s help, and the support of family friends in LA, Lily clawed her way back to health. But the pain lingered: in a 2017 magazine interview, she admitted she was ‘still in recovery’.
Charlie McDowell, Lily Collins and her mother Jill pictured together
US Director and musician Charlie McDowell got married to Lily back in 2021
Lily Collins and Charlie McDowell arrive for the 2nd Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, October 15, 2022
The actress has long been open about wanting children; spurred on, perhaps, by a desire to create the stable family unit she lacked as a child. And, miraculously, those years abusing her body didn’t do long-term harm. She wrote at her relief when a gynaecologist gave her the all-clear.
‘After all I had put my body through, I hadn’t screwed myself up for good,’ she wrote.
As for the sort of mother she hopes to be, there has never been any doubt. ‘I’d like to be like my own mother, who is my best friend, always encouraging and fun, but has a line where I respect her, too,’ Lily has said. ‘I hope I can be half the mother to my child that my mother was to me.’
Jill could not be prouder of the woman Lily has become. She adores Charlie whom Lily married in 2021, and is thrilled by the global stardom Lily found through the Netflix series Emily In Paris.
More recently, Lily has been performing to sold-out audiences at London’s Duke of York Theatre in the play Barcelona, which finished its 12-week run on January 11. Present one night was Jill, who, with a stern maternal glare, warned the theatre critic in the next seat: ‘Think of me when you’re writing mean things.’
These days, Lily’s star has eclipsed that of her father’s. Because of his health issues, Phil has all but left the limelight behind, while Lily’s success is at an all-time high. Indeed, he is often now referred to as ‘Lily Collins’s father’ – not the other way around.
It is no coincidence that the last post she shared online, two days before her baby announcement, was a birthday tribute to Phil.
‘The older I get, the greater I appreciate all the little, special moments spent together,’ she wrote.
She may be an actress, a wife, a mother, but all she craves, even now, is to make her father proud.
