Why the Women of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, Never Had Children
Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie bonded over being the only female members of Fleetwood Mac for many years. They also became the only members who did not have children, despite their relationships and affairs with their male bandmates. Here’s what Nicks and McVie shared about why they chose not to have kids, and what one of their exes said about it.
Stevie Nicks has been open about why she never had children and her abortion
Fleetwood Mac singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks has spoken many times about her decision not to have children.
“I couldn’t have really done both,” she told ABC News in 2001 when asked why she chose career over family. “Now, many women can do both. I’m not saying it can’t be done. But for me, I knew that if I had a baby, I would have to take care of that baby, and I wouldn’t have been happy with a nanny taking care of my baby and walking into the room and having my child run across the room to another woman. I am very jealous and I would have hated that. So under those circumstances, if I couldn’t be a great mom, then I decided it would be better not to, and to go ahead and do what I do, write my songs, try to help people that way.”
In 1979, Nicks became pregnant while dating the Eagles singer Don Henley. She terminated the pregnancy and has since claimed that Fleetwood Mac would not exist if it weren’t for her abortion.
“If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac,” the singer told The Guardian in 2020. “There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs… I would have had to walk away.”
She continued, “And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy. And I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission.”
Fleetwood Mac keyboardist Christine McVie also never had children
Stevie Nicks’ Fleetwood Mac bandmate, Christine McVie, also chose not to have children.
“There were never any children [for me],” McVie told The Guardian in 2013. “There was always a career in the way. It was a case of one or the other, and Stevie would say the same. The lads went off and had children but for Stevie and I it was a bit difficult to do that. So that was never able to happen. And I never found the right man. Not through want of trying.”
The keyboardist added, “It would certainly be difficult for a chap to swallow if his wife or girlfriend is dashing off without being at home to cook his supper for him.”
Stevie Nicks said she might have had kids with Lindsey Buckingham if it weren’t for Fleetwood Mac
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac as a couple, and their bitter breakup inspired many of the band’s greatest songs. Nicks once said there’s a chance she would have married Buckingham if they hadn’t joined the band.
“I think, in Lindsey’s heart, he thinks if we hadn’t joined Fleetwood Mac, we would still have become famous, and we probably would have gotten married and probably would have had kids and probably would have lived in San Francisco, his hometown, and our lives would have been very different and we probably would have never done drugs,” she told Q Magazine in 2008. “It’s possible.”
Buckingham has spoken about the differences between his and Nick’s personal lives. “There were a number of years where I wasn’t over her. It is possible that she has never been completely over me either,” he told The Times in 2021.
“I met the love of my life late and that gave me a whole other take on the world. Stevie did not have children. She went down a different route and has placed more importance on her professional life,” the guitarist said. “…It’s hard for me to know what her mentality is towards me, but I know what mine is to her because I’ve been married for 21 years and I have three children and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
