Fleetwood Mac as a whole has always been a band known for drama - and a good portion of their mess originates with the addition of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The duo joined the group in 1974, nearly a decade after Peter Green founded the band with its original lineup. By the time Nicks and Buckingham came on board, Green was gone, but the remaining members were fully capable of causing chaos on their own. Buckingham and Nicks entered Fleetwood Mac as a couple, making them the second romantic pairing in the group alongside Christine McVie and her then-husband, John McVie. (Mick Fleetwood rounded out the lineup at that point.) It wasn't long before the drama started. Within a few years, both couples had split, and Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood, who was then married to Jenny Boyd. The group somehow managed to stay together, but the turmoil never really stopped - in part because of Nicks and Buckingham's tumultuous post-breakup relationship. Nicks and Buckingham on stage with Fleetwood Mac in 1979. Richard E. Aaron/Redferns "I met her when I was about 16," Buckingham recalled in a 2009 BBC documentary about Fleetwood Mac. "It's been most of my life. Sadly, for the lion's share of those years, there has been distance and animosity of some kind, mixed in with everything else too. It's never been just one thing." While the former couple made it work for decades, things came to a screeching halt in 2018 when Buckingham was fired from Fleetwood Mac. The duo announced a reissue of their Buckingham Nicks album in 2025, but it remains to be seen whether they'll do any promo together after years of keeping each other at arm's length. Keep scrolling for a complete timeline of Nicks and Buckingham's relationship and its aftermath: 1966 Buckingham and Nicks met while attending high school in Atherton, California. According to Nicks, their first encounter was at an after-school gathering where they started harmonizing on the song "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas & the Papas. They began officially collaborating on music after Buckingham asked Nicks to join his band Fritz. Fleetwood Mac's Ups and Downs Over the Years: Affairs, Lineup Swaps, More 1972 After Fritz disbanded, Nicks and Buckingham's relationship turned romantic. "I'm not sure we would have even become a couple if it wasn't for us leaving that band," Nicks later said. "It kind of pushed us together." 1973 The pair released their one and only collaborative album, Buckingham Nicks, which was considered a commercial failure at the time. For more than 50 years, the album was unavailable on digital formats. Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' Turns 48: Stories Behind Every Classic Song 1974 Nicks and Buckingham, who were then still a couple, joined Fleetwood Mac on New Year's Eve. "If we hadn't joined Fleetwood Mac, would Lindsey and I have carried on and made it?" Nicks later wondered in an interview with Uncut. "I was really tired of having no money and being a waitress. It's very possible that I would have gone back to school and Lindsey would have gone back to San Francisco." 1975 Fleetwood Mac in 1975 after Nicks and Buckingham joined the band. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The twosome's first album with the band, titled Fleetwood Mac (known to fans as The White Album), dropped on July 11. The album included "Landslide," which Nicks said she wrote while deciding whether to go back to school or continue pursuing music with Buckingham. 1976 Buckingham and Nicks broke up after about four years together. Nicks later said their relationship was already rocky when they joined Fleetwood Mac, but they felt they should stay together for the band. "We'd only been in Fleetwood Mac for a year and a half, and we were breaking up when we joined Fleetwood Mac," she told The New Yorker in 2022. "So we just put our relationship kind of back together, because 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. 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. He wasn't happy either. Then something happened that was, you know, 'We're done.' And he knew it. It was time. And the band was solid, by that time, so I could walk away knowing that he was safe. And that the band was safe. And that we could work it out." 1977 Nicks and Buckingham performing with Fleetwood Mac circa 1977. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Fleetwood Mac released Rumours, which became their most famous album and remains one of the bestselling albums of all time. Several of the LP's songs were quite clearly about Nicks and Buckingham's breakup, including "Dreams" and "Go Your Own Way." In a 2009 documentary about the band, Nicks said she felt Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" lyrics about "shacking up" were "extremely disrespectful." Buckingham, meanwhile, claimed he was simply calling things like he saw them, saying, "It may be a rather truth