They may have called their highest selling album Rumours, but the outrageous stories that swirled around Fleetwood Mac like a big ol' tornado of trouble were all true.
These five wild tales from the band's tumultous career have it all; sex, drugs and soft rock 'n roll!
5: LindseyBuckingham out - lawsuit in. The most recent hot mess embroiling Fleetwood Mac was the firing of guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham last year. His impact on the band's fortunes goes far beyond songwriting and musicianship. His one condition to joining in 1975 was that his girlfriend join as well. The band agreed and Stevie Nicks became a member of Fleetwood Mac. Fast forward 40-odd years and Buckingham's reluctance to begin rehearsals for their current tour would see Nicks leading the charge to boot her ex out. Buckingham filed a lawsuit the very next day. This was settled but not before both sides spilled all to the press.
4: They snorted 'seven miles' of cocaine Fleetwood Mac's hedonistic ways are well documented in song and their own interviews. One of their wildest war stories is the calculation of how much cocaine they sniffed up. Speaking to The Sun earlier this year, Mick Fleetwood explained, "We figured we did X amount a day, and then some goofball got out a calculator and came up with that seven miles figure and said, 'Isn't that funny?' And it sort of is." For context, that's 11km of cocaine. Which is a lot.
3: Stevie Nicks put the 'ass' into assistant If the band as a whole did seven miles of coke, the enigmatic Gold Dust Woman is probably single-handedly responsible for half that mileage. Such was Nicks' prolific use of the drug that a biography revealed that after buying a $1 million stash, she promptly burnt a hole through her nose. That didn't slow her down, instead, it's claimed she simply expanded her assistant's duties to include blowing it up her derriere.
2: Their drug dealer almost got a shout-out Cocaine was such a major part of the tumultuous Rumours recording sessions that the band planned on thanking their dealer in the credits. Mick Fleetwood came up with the idea but a sudden burst of deadly violence put the kibosh on the plan. Writing in his 1990 autobiography he said, "Unfortunately, he got snuffed – executed! – before the thing came out."
Fleetwood Mac circa 1976 - from left Mick Fleetwood , Stevie Nicks , John McVie , Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham
1: You don't have to sleep with everyone in the band to be in Fleetwood Mac - but it helps! Nicks and Buckingham joined as an item but recording Rumours they were breaking up, leading the pair to repeatedly take lyrical swipes at each other in the songs. Nicks' brilliant Dreams is hurled at him, while he penned Second Hand News, Never Going Back Again and major hit Go Your Own Way at her.
Nicks and Mick Fleetwood would later begin a secretive affair, hiding it from the band, her then-boyfriend, Eagles' drummer Don Henley, and Fleetwood's wife, model Jenny Boyd. Boyd, however, was having her own affair with band member Bob Weston. After the Fleetwood marriage broke up the drummer began dating Nicks' best friend, displeasing the singer.
Meanwhile, the McVie's marriage was also ending. Christine was having an affair with the band's married sound engineer. When word got out the engineer and Weston were both fired. Later, Christine would begin a relationship with the band's lighting guy while John found solace in groupies and substances. Things were so bad between the married McVies that they weren't talking to each other during the recording of Rumours.
Speaking of the band's incestuous nature John McVie would later joke, "About the only people in the band who haven't had an affair are me and Lindsey."
