The Fleetwood Mac album Rumours chronicles the dissolution of John and Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s relationships. Rumours is widely regarded as the band’s magnum opus, but every member of the group dealt with personal upheaval while writing and recording it. According to McVie, though, she was never as melodramatic about her personal problems as Nicks and Buckingham were.
The McVies married in 1968 and were happy together for several years. Eventually, though, the strain of working together as a married couple began to wear on them.
“We were very happy. Very happy for probably three years and then the strain of me being in the same band as him started to take its toll,” McVie told Rolling Stone in 1977. “When you’re in the same band as somebody, you’re seeing them almost more than 24 hours a day. You start to see an awful lot of the bad side ’cause touring is no easy thing.”
McVie also began an affair with the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant. She divorced John McVie in the middle of a Fleetwood Mac tour in 1976.
Nicks and Buckingham were facing similar problems. The couple had been struggling for a while before joining Fleetwood Mac but decided to deal with their issues to join the band together. While writing and recording Rumours, though, they split.
“It was a little lonely there for a while,” Buckingham said. “The thought of being on my own really terrified me. But then I realized being alone is really a cleansing thing … as I began to feel myself becoming more myself again. I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did.”
The personal drama of the three Fleetwood Mac songwriters led to some of their best work. It also caused screaming matches, particularly between Nicks and Buckingham. Though they broke up in the 1970s, they continued to bitterly argue for decades to come. While the McVies hit a rough patch, they were able to establish a friendly relationship after their divorce.
“Well, we used to fight occasionally, but not that often,” McVie told Rolling Stone in 2022. “I think we sorted our differences out by then, and we actually got on really well … It was never as melodramatic as Stevie and Lindsey.”
She said that though they lived far apart, they remained in contact.
“And right now, we don’t live in the same hemisphere. He lives in LA; I live in London,” she explained. “But we occasionally write to each other or phone each other … He’s been suffering with a few health problems, but he’s OK. So we talk a fair bit. He’s a good man, John.”
When the sting of their breakups were much fresher, Nicks and McVie relied on one another. The band still worked well together, but everyone was furious with each other.
“We were cool onstage,” Nicks told The Guardian. “But offstage everybody was pretty angry. Most nights Chris and I would just go for dinner on our own, downstairs in the hotel, with security at the door.”
Through all the chaos, their friendship provided some much-needed simplicity.
“We shared rooms, did each other’s makeup and lived on Dunkin’ Donuts,” McVie said.