"I dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could. You could not say that I did not give him more than 300 million chances": Stevie Nicks explains why she cut Lindsey Buckingham out of her life, and it's partly because "he wasn't very nice to Harry Styles"
New interview suggests that Fleetwood Mac are over for good
Any remaining hopes that Fleetwood Mac could sort things out and get back together once more before it’s too late seem to have been extinguished by a new interview Stevie Nicks has given to Rolling Stone.
In it, Nicks says that she has only spoken to Lindsey Buckingham for “three minutes” at the celebration for Christine McVie’s life after her death in November 2022. She also reveals more details about what she says was the final straw for her - Buckingham’s behaviour at a MusiCares charity event in 2018.
"I dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could,” she says. “You could not say that I did not give him more than 300 million chances," she adds, saying it was the right time to cut ties. "I think that all just happened the way it should have. It happened one night, not planned, at a MusiCares. I didn't even tell anybody it had happened in my head until the whole ceremony was over."
At the event, Nicks says that she observed Buckingham “not being very nice” to various people. "He wasn't very nice to Harry Styles. I could hear my mom saying, 'Are you really going to spend the next 15 years of your life with this man?'" the 76-year-old continued. "I could hear my very pragmatic father - and by the way, my mom and dad liked Lindsey a lot - saying, 'It's time for you guys to get a divorce.' Between those two, I said, 'I'm done.'"
Nicks did reveal that she sent a message to Buckingham wishing him well when he underwent emergency heart surgery in February 2019. "I hope he lives a long life and continues to go into a studio and work with other people. He's also an icon, and he can teach people. He's not stopped in his tracks. He can still make music and have fun."
The news will be a blow to fans ever-hopeful that the pair will bury the hatchet and ensure that their parent band gets the farewell it deserves. Just last week, a revamping of Fleetwood Mac’s social media accounts was enough to get fans a-flutter about the possibility that this could be the prelude to a reunion announcement.
Instead, the band seem to have finally run out of road. “We had lots and lots of time, and lots and lots of tours that could have been the reconciliation tour and ‘now we’re going to quit’ tour,” Nicks told Rolling Stone. “I just felt that Christine and I had done everything we could do to make it a happy place. And it wasn’t a happy place anymore.”
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Will Simpson is a freelance music expert whose work has appeared in Classic Rock, Classic Pop, Guitarist and Total Guitar magazine. He is the author of 'Freedom Through Football: Inside Britain's Most Intrepid Sports Club' and his second book 'An American Cricket Odyssey' is due out in 2025