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Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood famously had an affair while touring with Fleetwood Mac. The drummer’s ex-wife said that when Fleetwood told her about the illicit relationship, he said he couldn’t decide if he should be with her or Nicks. Here’s what the two musicians and Fleetwood’s ex-wife said about the affair.

Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks, who had an affair while touring with Fleetwood Mac, walk through a crowd together.
Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks | Brad Barket/Getty Images

Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood had an affair while touring with Fleetwood Mac

Most Fleetwood Mac fans know that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had a turbulent relationship, but the “Gypsy” singer also had a romance with another bandmate. Founding member Mick Fleetwood had an affair with Nicks while he was married to Jenny Boyd.

The entanglement started in 1977, during the Australian leg of the Rumours tour. But it didn’t last long, as Nicks said she and Fleetwood quickly came to their senses. “One night we had a party and everybody was drunk and everybody was gone and it was just me and Mick, and we ended up spending the night together,” the singer told Q Magazine. “And I fell in love with Mick and I think Mick fell in love with me.”

Nicks has expressed many times that she regrets her affair with Fleetwood. She blamed the relationship on drug abuse, as she and the drummer were both heavily addicted to cocaine at the time of their romance.

“Mick and I would never have had an affair had we not had a party and all been completely drunk and messed up and coked out, and, you know, ended up being the last two people at the party,” Nicks said for Oprah’s Master Class. “So guess what? It’s not hard to figure out what happened – and what happened wasn’t a good thing. It was doomed. It was a doomed thing, caused a lot of pain for everybody, led to nothing.”

Mick Fleetwood said he couldn’t choose between Stevie Nicks and his wife

Jenny Boyd was married to Mick Fleetwood from 1970-1976. After separating, they remarried  briefly between 1977 and 1978. Boyd is the sister of model Pattie Boyd, who was married to Eric Clapton and The Beatles’ George Harrison. She opened up about her life with the Fleetwood Mac drummer in her 2020 memoir, Jennifer Juniper: A Journey Beyond the Muse

“‘There’s something I ought to tell you,’” he told her during a candid discussion about their relationship (via Cosmic Magazine). “‘I’ve been having an affair with Stevie for the last few months, since we were in Australia.’”

Boyd was shocked by the drummer’s admission, especially because, at the time, Nicks was dating the Eagles’ Don Henley.

“At first I didn’t understand what he’d said,” Boyd wrote. “It took some seconds for it to sink in. I stared at him in silence, feeling as though I’d been kicked in the stomach; my mind and heart in complete turmoil as I struggled to make sense of his words.”

“The trouble is,’’ Fleetwood continued, “I can’t make up my mind if I want to be with you or her.”

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The Fleetwood Mac stars got over their affair and stayed friends

Ultimately, Mick Fleetwood and Jenny Boyd gave their marriage another shot. He and Stevie Nicks stayed good friends, with no hard feelings between them.

Nicks avoided Boyd for a while, but she apologized for the affair years later. But Boyd had already forgiven her, and it was all water under the bridge.

“At times, once the shock had subsided,” Boyd wrote, “Mick and I would chat about his falling for Stevie as if we were old friends. ‘Oh well,’ he said one day, as we were walking towards my house, ‘she wrote some good songs because of it all.’ We looked at each other and laughed.”

How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.