Stevie Nicks Shared the Disrespectful Breakup Behavior That Made Her ‘Absolutely Ill’

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac as a couple, but most of their time working together was marked by the bitterness left behind from their breakup. Nicks shared that in the early days after their split, it was difficult to even be in the same room together. This was made even harder by some of Buckingham’s choices at that time. She shared the thing he did that made her feel sick.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham dated before joining Fleetwood Mac

Nicks and Buckingham met as high schoolers in California.

“We were at some get-together and he was there, sitting, playing his guitar — [the Mamas and the Papas’ hit] ‘California Dreamin’ — and I walked up and brazenly burst into harmony with him. It was cool, and I said, ‘I’m Stevie Nicks,’ and he said, ‘I’m Lindsey Buckingham,’” Nicks told MTV. “I never saw him again for two years, until he was in a band and he remembered that night and he called and asked me to join their band.”

When Nicks and Buckingham broke off from their band to pursue music as a duo, they became a couple. They had their troubles, even early on, and came close to breaking up before they joined Fleetwood Mac. They decided that they had to fix their relationship for the sake of their careers.

She shared the behavior by him that made her feel sick

While the two fit in well with Fleetwood Mac, their relationship never fully repaired. As they wrote and recorded their second album with the band, they broke up. The resulting album, Rumours, launched them to unprecedented levels of success. Still, Nicks said that the process of working with her ex was draining. 

“We were all breaking up, and that was a big problem,” she said on the radio show Off the Record, per The Nicks Fix. “We had two couples that were breaking up, so it’s difficult not to be bitter, it’s difficult not to be … somewhat nasty.”

Because they were touring and recording, the former couple was together nearly constantly, which led to some awkward moments. 

“To break up with somebody and see them the next morning in the hotel breakfast room … possibly with another person was about as difficult a situation as you could possibly imagine,” she said. “And for me to walk into a … to the breakfast room and see Lindsey sitting with a girl … I mean it was an instant U-turn in the first place, and uh, I mean it was — it was enough to make me absolutely ill.”

Nicks said she would never have done this to Buckingham.

“I have enough respect for the seven years that we went together and lived together … and, for all that he taught me, and all that he did for my music and the incredible — the incredible experience of being with him for seven years, I would never, ever, ever do something like that to hurt him.”

Stevie Nicks said she didn’t bring her boyfriends around the rest of Fleetwood Mac

Nicks said that when she did start dating after her breakup from Buckingham, she didn’t bring new boyfriends around the band. She knew they wouldn’t react well. 

“We almost always had boyfriends, but they weren’t on the road because they’d just get stomped on,” Nicks told The Guardian. “For me to have a guy out on the road with us, and have Lindsey glaring at him the whole time? Or for Christine to have a guy out and John just walk past and flip him off? No, we both learned very early on that we would never bring boyfriends on the road because it created arguments.”

Nicks said she didn’t need to bring her boyfriends on the road in order to have fulfilling romantic experiences.