Despite not being a couple in over 45 years — ousted Fleetwood Mac leader, Lindsey Buckingham, thinks Stevie Nicks may not be fully over him yet. Buckingham is out on the road in support of his new self-titled album and in the process of reconciling with his wife Kristen, who recently filed for divorce after 20-plus years.
Buckingham, who split with Nicks in 1976 while the pair were writing and recording Fleetwood Mac's muti-platinum Rumours collection, told The London Times, “There were a number of years where I wasn’t over her. It is possible that she has never been completely over me either. . . The way we had to get through Rumours is part of the legacy and heroics of the whole thing. We didn’t have time to heal or move on in the traditional sense. I think — and she was the one who moved away from me back then — that we both had to compartmentalize our feelings. That is not a healthy thing to do because those little compartments can remain sealed up for years, until things start seeping out when you don’t realize.”
He went on to compare and contrast his life as a married father of three against Nicks, who married briefly before divorcing and never had a family of her own: “I met the love of my life late and that gave me a whole other take on the world. Stevie did not have children. She went down a different route and has placed more importance on her professional life. How that played out in the last three, four, five years. . . It’s hard for me to know what her mentality is towards me, but I know what mine is to her because I’ve been married for 21 years and I have three children and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Lindsey Buckingham told us the public at large can't really grasp how tough it was for him during the sessions for Rumours — and beyond — to continue being a bandmate and producer with his former longtime live-in girlfriend: “For me personally, it was difficult to continue to produce songs for Stevie, and to do for her — do the right thing, obviously — but in the context of her moving away from me. And it was painful. Obviously, I think the same would be true for John and Christine (McVie).”
