Stevie Nicks Said She Wouldn’t Have Welcomed Herself Into Fleetwood Mac if She Was Christine McVie

By the time Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie had been a member of the band for years. Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham brought a new dynamic to the group and helped them rise to unprecedented success. McVie was happy to welcome them into the group. According to Nicks, though, she wouldn’t have been happy if she was in the same position. She said she wouldn’t have been as happy to welcome another woman into the band.

Stevie Nicks said she wouldn’t have wanted someone like herself to join Fleetwood Mac if she was Christine McVie

Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, and Jeremy Spencer founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967, years before Nicks and Buckingham became members. The band underwent multiple lineup changes, and by 1974, McVie, her husband John McVie, and Fleetwood were on the hunt for a new guitarist.

Impressed by a demo of Buckingham playing guitar, Fleetwood invited him to join the band. He said he would consider it if Nicks, his girlfriend at the time, could join too. The band didn’t necessarily need another vocalist, but Fleetwood agreed as long as Nicks and McVie got along. They hit it off, but Nicks said that if she’d been in McVie’s position, she wouldn’t have welcomed another woman into the band. 

“I was very aware that they didn’t need another girl,” Nicks said on Off the Record With Joe Benson (via The Nicks Fix). “Especially another girl that was not behind a piano, and that was going to stand right out front in the middle. And I mean, I understood that, I mean it was like, if I had been Christine, I would have said, ‘Well I’m not too crazy about that idea myself, actually, but… you know, I’ve been in this band for a hundred years and… there’s this little, you know, twenty-seven-year-old girl that’s gonna walk — come walking out — and … be the lead singer, basically, because that’s where she stands.” 

Nicks said that she was only able to join the band because of McVie’s maturity.

“Christine is… a very mature… and very unjealous person….,” she said. “And so…. if she ever did feel any jealousy, she never let me know it.”

Christine McVie lived up to her title of ‘Mother Earth’

Nicks began referring to McVie as Mother Earth because she was unflappable amid Fleetwood Mac’s chaos.

“I was kind of the good girl in the group,” McVie told Harper’s Bazaar. “That’s who I was. Stevie used to call me Mother Earth because I was always pretty grounded.”

Her attitude toward Nicks proves that she lived up to her nickname. McVie was content making and performing music. She was not concerned with keeping the spotlight solely on her. Because of this, she could balance out Nicks and Buckingham, who both brought considerable egos to the band. 

Did Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie get along? 

Nicks and McVie were different, but they relied on each other in Fleetwood Mac. They were a united front against any disrespect from men in the music industry. They also leaned on each other as they ended their romantic relationships in the Rumours era.

“We met and I instantly liked her,” McVie told Rolling Stone. “She and I are not competitive in any way at all. We’re totally different, but totally sympathetic with each other. We are dear, dear friends. We don’t have any competition on stage. She is who she is. I am who I am. Easy, easy, easy.”

While their relationship hit some bumps — it would be difficult to survive Fleetwood Mac without some level of drama — they remained solid friends.