Stevie Nicks Breaks Silence on Lindsey Buckingham’s Firing from Fleetwood Mac After He Compares Her to Trump

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Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are finally addressing his contentious firing from Fleetwood Mac.

Buckingham first reignited the feud between him and his former bandmates during an interview for Rolling Stone, in which he blamed Nicks for his ousting.

“I think she wanted to shape the band in her own image, a more mellow thing, and if you look at the last tour, I think that’s true,” Buckingham said of his 2018 firing.

Buckingham’s exit from Fleetwood Mac occurred shortly after the band accepted the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2018, during which “Rhiannon” — written by Nicks — played as the group walked onstage.

“There was talk at the time that Nicks had grown tired of Buckingham’s behavior, particularly him smirking and acting out during her speech at the MusiCares event,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Stephen Rodrick. “Buckingham says that’s bullshit and that it was his new record that forced the rupture.”

The guitarist viewed his dismissal from the band as “the result of the other band members cowering before Nicks,” Rodrick wrote, adding that “Buckingham’s emails and calls to the other members of Fleetwood Mac went unanswered” for months after he asked to delay an upcoming tour.

“I think others in the band just felt that they were not empowered enough, individually, for whatever their own reasons, to stand up for what was right,” Buckingham said of Fleetwood’s relationship with Nicks. “And so, it became a little bit like [Donald] Trump and the Republicans.”

Buckingham’s comments to Rolling Stone, as well as his recent interviews with the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, in which he claimed Nicks was the only band member to take issue with his request to delay the 2018 tour, sparked the band’s primary lead singer to make her first statement on the matter.

“It’s unfortunate that Lindsey has chosen to tell a revisionist history of what transpired in 2018 with Fleetwood Mac,” she said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “His version of events is factually inaccurate.”

Nicks went on to write that she decided she was “no longer willing to work” with Buckingham after an exceedingly difficult time at the MusiCares event.

“I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being. I was done,” she said. “If the band went on without me, so be it. I have championed independence my whole life, and I believe every human being should have the absolute freedom to set their boundaries of what they can and cannot work with.”

Read the full statement below, via Rolling Stone:

It’s unfortunate that Lindsey has chosen to tell a revisionist history of what transpired in 2018 with Fleetwood Mac. His version of events is factually inaccurate, and while I’ve never spoken publicly on the matter, preferring to not air dirty laundry, certainly it feels the time has come to shine a light on the truth. Following an exceedingly difficult time with Lindsey at MusiCares in New York, in 2018, I decided for myself that I was no longer willing to work with him. I could publicly reflect on the many reasons why, and perhaps I will do that someday in a memoir, but suffice it to say we could start in 1968 and work up to 2018 with a litany of very precise reasons why I will not work with him. To be exceedingly clear, I did not have him fired, I did not ask for him to be fired, I did not demand he be fired. Frankly, I fired myself. I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being. I was done. If the band went on without me, so be it. I have championed independence my whole life, and I believe every human being should have the absolute freedom to set their boundaries of what they can and cannot work with. And after many lengthy group discussions, Fleetwood Mac, a band whose legacy is rooted in evolution and change, found a new path forward with two hugely talented new members. Further to that, as for a comment on “family”—I was thrilled for Lindsey when he had children, but I wasn’t interested in making those same life choices. Those are my decisions that I get to make for myself. I’m proud of the life choices I’ve made, and it seems a shame for him to pass judgment on anyone who makes a choice to live their life on their own terms, even if it looks differently from what his life choices have been.