Stevie Nicks Said Lindsey Buckingham Made Her Life a ‘Living Nightmare’ After They Broke Up

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham broke up two months into the recording of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Their songs on the album capture the turbulent relationship between the two of them. Nicks said that they had problems before they broke up, but things got exponentially worse afterwards. She thought that there was nothing she could do to get on Buckingham’s good side. 

Stevie Nicks said Lindsey Buckingham did not make her life easy after their split

Nicks and Buckingham met as high school students and began dating when they moved to Los Angeles to pursue music as a duo. Nicks said that things weren’t perfect, even back then.

“Rich and famous or starving and poor, we went through the same problems,” she said, per Rolling Stone. “He always wanted me to himself, but somebody had to go out and earn some money. All he wanted to do was play his music. When I came home, I’d always get a slight cold shoulder. He wouldn’t quite trust me about where I’d been or what I’d been doing.”

They broke up during the rocky period while recording Rumours, and things chilled further between them.

“When we broke up, two years after joining Fleetwood Mac, it was like a living nightmare…. Everything about me seemed to bug him,” she said. “My laughter, the way I could deal with a lot of difficult things, all made him want to cringe.”

She said she had to change her behavior around him to avoid stoking his ire.

“So I changed when I was around him,” she said. “I became mouse-like and would never dare offer a suggestion.”