Did Harry Styles get Lindsey Buckingham kicked out of Fleetwood?
Harry Styles is also behind Lindsey Buckingham’s expulsion from Fleetwood Mac. All true. What does the former One Direction, who has become one of the most loved and influential pop stars of his generation, have to do with the dismissal of the historic guitarist of the “Rumours” band? This is explained by Stevie Nicks, who has long been very close to Harry Styles himself, with whom she has also shared the stage on several occasions.
In a long interview with the US edition of Rolling Stone, the 76-year-old singer said:
I dealt with Lindsey as long as I could. You can’t say I didn’t give him more than 300 million chances. NoHe wasn’t very nice to anyone. He wasn’t very kind to Harry Styles.
It was 2018 when Harry Styles joined Fleetwood Mac for a performance at MusiCares, to the tune of “The Chain”. There is still a photo online taken backstage at the event, which portrays Harry Styles next to a not very enthusiastic – at least from the expression – Lindsey Buckingham. Stevie Nicks doesn’t tell in detail what happened that evening, but in the interview with Rolling Stone she reveals that their relationship was consummated right backstage at the event:
I think everything went the way it was supposed to go. My mother said to me, ‘Are you really going to spend the next 15 years of your life with this man?’ And my father, very pragmatic (and by the way, my mother and father really liked Lindsey), said, ‘It’s time for you to get a divorce.’ I said, ‘I’m done.’
MusiCares took place in January 2018. Three months later Fleetwood Mac announced a tour that did not feature Lindsey Buckingham. The guitarist thundered: “Some of you know that over the last three months I have sadly taken leave of my band, Fleetwood Mac, after 43 years. It wasn’t something I really wanted to do, nor was it my choice.
I think factions formed within the band, and they had lost their perspective. They had lost their point of view. The only thing I’m really sorry about is that they damaged a 43-year legacy that we had built with hard work.”