A rumor in August 2025 alleged that Paul McCartney, the iconic member of The Beatles, paid a hospital visit to Genesis drummer and lead singer Phil Collins.
For example, an Aug. 6 Facebook post (archived) read: "This is Paul McCartney visiting the very fraill Phil Collins in hospital. PRAY FOR Phil Collins."
(VintageOld Skool/Facebook)
The post included three images: one of McCartney playing guitar while Collins clapped from a hospital bed, another of the two embracing, and a third showing them gazing at each other.
The rumor also appeared on X (archived and archived). Snopes found that the Rock & Roll Universe Facebook page that was the first to post (archived) the rumor gained over 91,000 reactions and over 18,000 shares as of this writing.
Snopes readers also emailed us to ask whether the claim was true, with one noting that the social media posts contained "suspicious-looking images."
However, searches of Bing (archived), DuckDuckGo (archived) and Google produced no evidence of any news media outlets reporting on a story about McCartney visiting Collins in a hospital. Prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this moment if it were true.
There were also signs that the image of McCartney playing the guitar was AI-generated. First, he was holding the instrument as if he were right-handed, despite being known to play left-handed (archived). Additionally, the guitar strings appeared unnaturally blurred or distorted, lacking the tension and detail you'd expect in a real photo. The skin texture was overly smooth, and the lighting appeared uniformly soft and diffuse.
Snopes reached out to Collins' representatives to inquire about his current health status. In late July 2025, People magazine reported (archived) that he was recovering from knee surgery, though it did not specify whether he remained hospitalized. We will update this article if we receive a response.