Some love stories inspire hope for a lifetime. Others fade away with heartbreak. And then there are Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, whose time-tested saga is a tale stranger than fiction that even inspired the novel "Daisy Jones & the Six." To call them exes would be an oversimplification, given that the Fleetwood Mac bandmates have spent the better part of their lives entangled in a connection that didn't ever end -- and probably never will.
Built on love, rivalry, and, of course, music, Nicks
and Buckingham's relationship is one of rock history's most enduring dramas that has continued to remain as relevant as it was when it first began in the 1960s. And it's all thanks to the two legends who -- through their knife-sharp words, nostalgia-soaked memories, stage performances, and, more recently, cryptic social media posts that seem to be hinting at a possible, much anticipated reunion -- have remained tethered to each other and Fleetwood Mac's legacy in an inexplicably everlasting way.
It's a reality neither has been able to escape. "When we walk onstage, we are still able to pull back that love affair, and we can have it, the audience gets to have it, and everybody enjoys it," Nicks said on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," decades after her love affair with Buckingham ended in the 1970s. Here is a full timeline of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's high-octane relationship that has been an artwork of its own.
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Stevie Nicks And Lindsey Buckingham Met During Their School Years
Like in every legendary love affair, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's story spans decades. The two were still in school when they first crossed paths -- Nicks a couple of years Buckingham's senior -- in the 1960s. Nothing too significant between them took shape just then, save for a duet of "California Dreamin'" they performed during a school club event in Atherton, California. As Nicks has recalled it, she reconnected with Buckingham not long after graduating high school. As she recapped in The New Yorker, one of Buckingham's bandmates reached out to her and said, "You met Lindsey two years ago, and he remembers you, and he was wondering if you'd like to sing in our band." It was a phone call that changed everything.
Fritz, the band Buckingham had been a part of since school, was in need of a new vocalist and Nicks filled the position. Given the electric passion that has defined their relationship for decades, it's a bit hard to believe that Nicks and Buckingham didn't immediately see fireworks in each other's company. But this resolve was likely rooted in the prudence the male-dominated rock band exercised when it came to their only female colleague. "I think there was always something between me and Lindsey, but nobody in that band really wanted me as their girlfriend because I was just too ambitious for them," Nicks quipped to Rolling Stone back in 1977.
They Began Traveling And Making Music Together
It was only when Fritz broke up that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's romance took off full throttle. Music was, of course, a common denominator and served as a great catalyst for bringing the two young artists closer than ever. "We started spending a lot of time together working out songs. Pretty soon we started spending all our time together and ... it just happened," Nicks told Rolling Stone. The end of Fritz signaled the start of a new musical era for Nicks and Buckingham, who packed up their bags and moved to Los Angeles in hopes of building a future. With their obvious talent and sizzling chemistry, it didn't take long for the pair to begin climbing the ladder.
Their first gentle brush with fame came about in 1973 with their namesake debut album "Buckingham Nicks." Though it was hardly a successful release, it definitely proved to get the ball rolling. For starters, with whatever acclaim it managed to accrue at the time, it established Nicks and Buckingham as a bold new duo worth watching out for. The album cover, which featured both of them topless, echoed this audacity. Nicks would later reveal that she did not want to pose without a shirt on. As she told Mojo, "I did it because I felt like a rat in a trap." The other thing "Buckingham Nicks" did was put the up-and-coming duo within the purview of a British rockstar who would invite them into his band and change the course of music history.
Even Before They Joined Fleetwood Mac, Cracks Had Begun Appearing In Their Relationship
During a visit to Sound City Studios in 1974, Mick Fleetwood -- the founder and frontman of the then fast-growing rock band Fleetwood Mac -- was introduced to a song called "Frozen Love" from an album called "Buckingham Nicks." He was particularly drawn to Lindsey Buckingham's guitar playing — so much so, he asked him to join Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham told Fleetwood that he would take up the offer on one condition: that his girlfriend Stevie Nicks join too. This grand show of love hardly betrayed the tensions that were bubbling beneath the surface of Buckingham and Nicks' seemingly picture-perfect rock romance.
"When we moved, it was lonely," Nicks told Billboard, recalling the couple's difficult early years in Los Angeles. "I didn't have any girlfriends. And I was the one who worked. I had to be a waitress, and a cleaning lady, in order to support us." When they joined Fleetwood Mac, the cracks in their relationship were only deepening. But for the sake of their musical dreams, which finally seemed to be coming true, Buckingham and Nicks decided to push past their personal issues and steady themselves. Nicks explained of their resolve to stay together: "Maybe we're not going to have any more problems, because we're finally going to have some money. And I won't have to be a waitress."
Their Breakup Became Part Of The Fiery Lore Of The Rumours Album
While Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's decision to give their doomed relationship a second chance was motivated by prudence, it was more or less just makeshift mending. "I was smart enough to know that, if we had broken up the second month of being in Fleetwood Mac, it would have blown the whole thing," Nicks told The New Yorker. The star-crossed lovers began living together again, they were rising the charts with their first big album "Fleetwood Mac," which featured hits like "Rhiannon" and "Landslide." On top of all of that, they were raking in millions. As Nicks put it, "I just bided my time, and tried to make everything as easy as possible, tried to be as sweet and as nice to Lindsey as I could be."
Their troubles caught up with them soon enough. Just ahead of recording their epoch-making 1977 album "Rumours" -- a bona fide masterpiece that will be tied eternally to the romantic drama that blazed behind the scenes -- Nicks and Buckingham called it quits. With their bandmates also momentously going through breakups at the same time -- Mick Fleetwood had discovered that his wife was cheating on him, while John and Christine McVie were divorcing -- emotions within the group were at an all-time high. And this is exactly what, according to a popular line of theory, galvanized Fleetwood Mac's collective genius and culminated in one of the most iconic albums of all time.
Stevie Nicks And Lindsey Buckingham's Personal Drama Played Out Publicly In Songs And On Stage
In what was surely an inevitable turn of events, the band's messy personal drama bubbled up in their work. As any true artists would do, the members of Fleetwood Mac expressed the whole breadth of their feelings into the songs they recorded for "Rumours" and even in songs on subsequent records. Some of the most piercing ones came from Lindsey Buckingham, who made no bones about his strained relationship with Stevie Nicks in popular titles like "Never Going Back Again" and "Go Your Own Way." The latter particularly provoked Nicks, especially the lyric "Packing up, shacking up's all you want to do."
"Every time those words would come out onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him," she told Rolling Stone. Her own "Silver Springs" and "Dreams" were far softer, but equally pertinent interpretations of the tense situation. But their fiery back and forth extended beyond songwriting and, at times, played out all too graphically in public. One such incident occurred in 1980, when during a tour for their album "Tusk" in New Zealand, Buckingham reportedly kicked Nicks on stage for singing over him. Another time, he mocked her trademark witchy dance during a performance of "Rhiannon."
It Probably Didn't Help That Stevie Nicks Had An Affair With Mick Fleetwood
The fires that had been lit within Fleetwood Mac showed no signs of being doused. In fact, they were only fanned further. An affair -- perhaps not fully unexpected, given the romantic entanglements had very much become a part of the group's fabric -- transpired between Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood sometime in 1977. The band's infamous, between-the-sheets Rolling Stone cover shoot apparently laid the groundwork for a closer bond to develop between the two. In true Fleetwood Mac fashion, this equation came with its own share of complications. One of them was the toll it took on Fleetwood's marriage to Jenny Boyd, which had already been standing on its last legs.
"I stared at him in silence, feeling as though I'd been kicked in the stomach," Boyd wrote in her memoir "Jennifer Juniper," describing the moment Fleetwood told her about his affair (via Cosmic Magazine). "She had finally got her hands on him, I thought bitterly ... and I had never suspected." Nicks' ex-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham was far less shell-shocked when Fleetwood delivered this blow to him. On the contrary, he almost expected it. "Quite honestly I'd have been surprised if it hadn't happened," he told the Independent. "Stevie and I had long since parted company and she'd had several boyfriends in between." Nicks and Buckingham's affair eventually buckled under pressures of infidelity, adding to the emotional uneasiness that hung low over the band.
Lindsey Buckingham Left The Band Amid Tensions
Over the next decade, the band managed to drag ahead through the mounting friction by doing what they did best: making music. After the peak they touched with "Rumours," Fleetwood Mac went on to release "Tusk," "Mirage," and "Tango in the Night." However, the years of relentless touring, drug use, and relationship ups and downs had begun to take a toll on Lindsey Buckingham. As he told Rolling Stone, "When you break up with someone and then for the next 10 years you have to be around them and do for them and watch them move away from you, it's not easy." So in 1987, Buckingham up and left Fleetwood Mac.
While the circumstances of his departure are shrouded in conflicting narratives -- including an allegation about a physical altercation that supposedly broke out between Buckingham and Stevie Nicks -- the event itself didn't come as a complete surprise, according to fellow Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie. In an interview with Elsewhere, McVie, who was widely considered by Fleetwood Mac fans as one of the more grounded members of the group, gave a rundown of what transpired: "He he the wanted to branch out and didn't think Fleetwood Mac was an ongoing thing ... It was his choice to leave." Buckingham's exit seemed to pretty much seal the band's fate and just a few years later, Nicks followed her ex-boyfriend out of the door. However, it hardly meant that Fleetwood Mac was over for good.
They Went Their Own Ways But Reunited Over The Years For Major Performances
After leaving Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham went their own ways, pursuing solo careers and relationships that kept them apart. However, they would eventually cross paths again, and it was all thanks to Bill Clinton. The former U.S. president had played and replayed the band's popular hit "Don't Stop" throughout his presidential campaign; when he was actually elected, it only made sense that he'd invited the band to play at his inaugural ball in 1993. As Nicks recalled to CBS News, she wasted no time in getting the rest of the group on board. She remembered telling Buckingham, "We have to do this. We need to go and play for Bill."
The legendary lineup, which also included Mick Fleetwood, and John and Christine McVie, got back together after six years. This would be the first of many Fleetwood Mac reunions to come in the next few years; by the late 1990s, the band was re-energized enough to pick up where they had left off. "I was able to look Stevie in the eye and acknowledge we were these two kids who came down from northern California and made something significant happen," Buckingham told the Independent. For nearly two decades after, Buckingham and Nicks continued to coexist in each other's worlds and somehow, make it work.
They Battled It Out In Court And In Interviews
Considering the fraught history of Fleetwood Mac, it was only a matter of time before things would take yet another turn. And predictably enough, they did. In 2018, the decades-long feud between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham seemed to come to a head in the most dramatic way. Buckingham was booted from the band, amid accusations that his former flame had played a direct hand in ending his second stint with the iconic rock band. "I think she wanted to shape the band in her own image, a more mellow thing," he told Rolling Stone, also calling out the inability of the other band members to stand up to Nicks. He sued Fleetwood Mac, with the lawsuit being settled out of court.
The legal battle was only a piece of it. Buckingham also took digs at other aspects of Nicks' life, suggesting she's a lonely person who envies him because he has children. Not one to back down, especially when the subject is Buckingham, Nicks refuted his allegation that she got him fired in a razor-sharp statement provided to Rolling Stone. "We could start in 1968 and work up to 2018 with a litany of very precise reasons why I will not work with him," she said. Nicks claimed that her friction with Buckingham, which apparently boiled over in a big way at the MusiCares Person of the Year event that year, prompted her to step back from the band.
Despite The Feuding, The Two Can't Deny Their History
Even with all said and done about a saga that has turbulently ebbed and flowed for over half a century (often exhaustingly so), to think that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's story can ever reach a clean conclusion feels misguided. Though romance in all its conventional sense seemed to have ended decades ago for the rock duo, the profound love they shared has evidently survived in some raw but painfully real form. The clearest manifestation of it is that, through all the years of infighting and heartbreak, Nicks and Buckingham never really left one another's orbit. As Nicks once said in the Independent, "It's like Lindsey and me: no matter how many children or grandchildren you have, Lindsey, I'm always gonna be there."
It's not just Nicks' persistent declarations of undying love for Buckingham that has earned their relationship the crowning status of "the greatest situationship in the world" among fans. Though Buckingham began building a family with his wife Kristen Messner in the 1990s, he often spoke about Nicks with a kind of tragic fondness in interviews. "I've known Stevie since I was 16, so I would like to think there's a better way for us to finish up than we finished up," he told The New York Times after their acrimonious fallout in 2018. "Not just for Fleetwood Mac and for the legacy, but just for the two of us." In 2023, Nicks and Buckingham did put their issues aside when they got together to honor the incredible life of bandmate Christine McVie, but a formal reunion still seemed like a pipe dream.
Their Cryptic Instagram Posts In 2025 Set Fans Buzzing With Excitement
In all their years together and apart, if there is one thing that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks have made clear, it is that their relationship does not trace a linear path. And while that idea has more often than not translated into drama (of the hostile kind) between them, certain events that transpired in 2025 seem to be pointing to a different, more hopeful narrative. In July, Buckingham and Nicks each shared social media posts that appeared coordinated; they were in the same format of single lines handwritten against plain white backgrounds, without any captions. But the real giveaway was what the posts said.
LOVE IS REAL pic.twitter.com/VJwK2ATM5D
— stevie nicks manager | BN manager (@kajolswife) July 17, 2025
"And if you go forward ... " read Nicks' post, which Buckingham's completed: "I'll meet you there" -- a line from "Frozen Love," the musical duo's very first album "Buckingham Nicks." This sent fans into a frenzy, who couldn't help but speculate over a possible reunion of the legendary ex-lovers. To top it all, a billboard that featured the album's unforgettable cover alongside an unexplained date of September 16 reportedly showed up near Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, where that piece of music history was recorded. While the two artists have yet to shed light on the matter, even the mere prospect of a revival of their vintage work is exciting and reinforces what fans have always known: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham's story is not over.
Read the original article on The List.
