Although Fleetwood Mac’s music made them famous, the various relationships and affairs of the band members became a legend. Romances and bitter breakups threatened the stability of the band and sometimes resulted in their performances on stage. Although they all valued the band too much to disband it, the dynamics were turbulent, especially in the Rumours era. Here are the relationships and affairs that caused chaos at Fleetwood Mac.
Bob Weston and Jenny Boyd had an affair that led to the dismissal
In the years of Fleetwood Mac, before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, there was still a lot of drama in the relationship. Bob Weston was the lead guitarist in the band in the early 1970s. His career in the band collapsed when he began an affair with the wife of co-founder and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
In 1973, Fleetwood found out that his wife Jenny Boyd and Weston were romantically involved. No wonder Fleetwood fired Weston.
“[It was] the most expensive novel of my life,” Weston said, according to the Express. “It cost me my career.”
His absence really prepared the band for the addition of Buckingham and Nicks in 1975.
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are the most famous Fleetwood Mac couple.
Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac as part of a comprehensive deal. The band needed a guitarist, and Buckingham agreed to join only if his bandmate and girlfriend Nyx went with him. At that time, they already had problems in their relationship, but they tried to make it work for the sake of their career. However, this did not last long.
During the writing and recording of the album Rumours, Nicks and Buckingham broke up. The consequences of their relationship lasted for years — they had screams in the studio and physical quarrels on stage — but neither of them wanted to leave the band.
“In fact, each of us was too proud and too stubborn to walk away from it,” Nicks said, according to Uncut. “I wasn’t going to leave. Lindsay wasn’t going to leave. What would we do — sit in Los Angeles and try to create new bands? It was just “grit your teeth and endure.”
Nicks is still a member of Fleetwood Mac, but the band fired Buckingham in 2018.
Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood had a secret affair
In the late 1970s, Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood. Both were in other relationships at the time.
“I eventually fell in love with her, and it was chaotic, it was on the road, and it was a crazy romance that lasted longer than any of us really remember-maybe a few years towards the end,” Fleetwood wrote in his book Play it.
Although they loved each other, Nix doesn’t think their relationship would have worked out without drugs or alcohol. She also regretted hurting Fleetwood’s family.
“I loved these people,” she said. “Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumors” by Zoey Howe. “It couldn’t work, and it didn’t work.”
Their relationship ended when Fleetwood left Nyx for one of her close friends.
Kristin McVie and John McVie broke off their relationship while at Fleetwood Mac.
Singer and keyboardist Kristin McVie married founding member John McVie before joining Fleetwood Mac. She explained that as soon as she joined the group, the strain of working together began to tire the couple.
“We were very happy. I was very happy, probably for three years, and then the tension of being in the same band with him started to tell,” she told Rolling Stone. “When you are in the same group with someone, you see them almost more than 24 hours a day. You start to see a lot of bad sides, because touring is not an easy thing.”
In the end, it became unbearable for McVie. She divorced her husband in 1976 while the band was touring.
“I broke up with John in the middle of the tour,” she said. “I understood that it was quite irresponsible. I had to do it for my sanity. Either that or I’ll end up in a madhouse.”
Kristin McVie and Curry Grant inspired the creation of the famous Fleetwood Mac song.
Another reason for the breakup was McVie’s affair with the group’s lighting director, Curry Grant. It didn’t make touring any easier.
“Wherever John was, he couldn’t be,” McVie said. “There were very delicate moments.”
The song “You Make Loving Fun” was about Grant, but McVie told John McVie that it was about her dog.
