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While working on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham ended their years-long romantic relationship. Their relationship had been rocky for a while, and the breakup did little to improve their dynamic. Even years after the split, the couple continued to bicker. In 1997, roughly two decades after their breakup, Buckingham tentatively speculated about a reunion between himself and Nicks. Given her reaction, though, it’s not surprising that they didn’t get back together.

Lindsey Buckingham wondered about the possibility of a reunion with Stevie Nicks

On Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 tour, Nicks gave a bewitching performance of “Silver Springs,” a song about her relationship with Buckingham. As she sang, she stared down her former partner, who found it hard not to feel moved by her performance.

“‘Silver Springs’ always ends up in that place for me because she’s always very committed to what those words are about, and I remember what they were about then,” he told Rolling Stone in 1997. “Now it’s all irony, you know, but there is no way you can’t get drawn into the end of that song.”

With the intensity of that performance and their embrace at the end of “Landslide,” Buckingham said he could understand why fans might think they were back together. Even he wondered if it was possible.

“I think some people are probably getting the impression that we are back together or something along those lines,” he said. “Which is certainly not true. Not yet, anyway. You never know. I don’t foresee that at all. But, you know, things ….”

Nicks, however, made it clear she wasn’t open to resuming their romance.

“Over my dead body,” she said. “See, I don’t want to be part of that darkness. He knows that. When we’re up there singing songs to each other, we probably say more to each other than we ever would in real life. If you offered me a passionate love affair and you offered me a high-priestess role in a fabulous castle above a cliff where I can just, like, live a very spiritual kind of religious-library-communing-with-the-stars, learning kind of existence, I’m going to go for the high priestess.”

Stevie Nicks said she would always feel connected to Lindsey Buckingham

Despite Nicks’ firm words, she said their relationship didn’t fully feel over until the following year. For her, a possibility of reunion existed until he had his first child.

“The day his first child was born,” she told MTV. “I knew that was it … that was the definitive thing.”

Still, she didn’t think their connection would ever fully go away.

“It’s over. It doesn’t mean the great feeling isn’t there, it must mean that … you know, we’re beauty and the beast,” she said. “It means that the love is always there but we’ll never be together, so that’s even more romantic.”

The former couple reunited at a service for Christine McVie

In 2018, Fleetwood Mac fired Buckingham after Nicks said she could no longer work with him. The former couple fell out of contact, but reunited in 2023 at a service to celebrate Christine McVie. McVie died in 2022, devastating her bandmates. 

“We were so lucky to have a life with her,” the band wrote in a statement on Twitter. “Individually and together, we cherished Christine deeply and are thankful for the amazing memories we have. She will be so very missed.”

McVie meant a great deal to both Nicks and Buckingham. As a result, they were able to put aside their differences to honor her.

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