
The signs Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are getting back together
Key members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham may be 77 and 75 respectively, but the former lovers have sent the rumour mill into overdrive yet again with a series of cryptic social media posts. Almost six decades after the original iteration of the band formed, the psychodrama continues. And it feels strangely reassuring.
Here's what happened. On Thursday afternoon, Nicks posted five words in squiggly writing followed by an ellipsis on her Instagram account: 'And if you go forward…' A hardcore contingent of her 2.2 million followers went bananas, recognising the words as lyrics from a 1973 song called Frozen Love, which appeared on Buckingham Nicks, her sole album with Buckingham before the pair joined Fleetwood Mac the following year.
An hour later, excitement hit Defcon 1. Buckingham, with whom Nicks has always had an intense and tortured relationship, put a similarly squiggly-written post on his own Instagram account. 'I'll meet you there,' he wrote – the second half of the line that Nicks had posted shortly before.
Cue a landslide of excitement and speculation. 'Buckingham Nicks in 2025 was not on my bingo card,' wrote one fan. '60-year situationship is crazy,' wrote another. A third fan, assuming that a joint tour was being suggested, wrote: 'Stop it! I will liquidate my assets for front row tickets RIGHT NOW.'
So what's going on? Just as the pair no doubt intended, we're all in the dark. A contact of mine put me in touch with Buckingham's manager, but he was keeping shtum. There are four possibilities. One is that, as the asset liquidator assumes, the pair are going to hit the road together. Nicks, who drew a vast crowd at London's BST Hyde Park last summer, already has a massive US tour starting next month and Buckingham has nothing planned. It's entirely feasible.
The second possibility is that a wider Fleetwood Mac reunion is on the cards. Frozen Love was the song that led drummer Mick Fleetwood to ask Buckingham to join the band back in 1974 (he said yes, on the condition that his musical partner and girlfriend Nicks could join too). It was actually Fleetwood who kicked the whole thing off on Wednesday when he posted a video snippet of himself listening to Frozen Love on Instagram. 'Magic then, magic now,' Fleetwood wrote.
Fleetwood Mac last toured in 2019, with Crowded House's Neil Finn replacing Buckingham, who was fired after a reported disagreement with the band over tour dates. However the death of Christine McVie in 2022 might have put paid to this: Nicks told Mojo magazine last year that there's 'no chance' of the band getting back together without McVie. The third possibility is that nothing is going on. It's just a truce between old lovers.
The fourth reason, and the most likely, is the re-release and digitisation of the Buckingham Nicks album. With its sleeve featuring a topless photo of the hirsute sweethearts, the record bombed on its release and has never even been available on streaming platforms. There would be huge demand for it.
More than Kurt and Courtney or Mick and Marianne, Nicks and Buckingham are rock's most famous couple. Theirs was a story of backstabbing and bed-hopping. They met at high school in California, joined a band called Fritz and became lovers. Their passionate and stormy relationship lasted until 1976 before it brutally collapsed, just as Fleetwood Mac were writing Rumours. Both were too proud to walk away from the band. Nicks later had a brief affair with Fleetwood – hardly the recipe for smooth band relationships.
Nicks and Buckingham's tempestuous relationship yielded some of pop's greatest songs. Buckingham wrote the self-explanatory Go Your Own Way and Never Going Back Again about Nicks. She wrote Dreams about Buckingham ('You say you want your freedom… But listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness'). As Nicks later described it: 'He's looking at it from a very unpleasant, angry way, and I'm saying, in my more airy-fairy way, 'We're gonna be alright. We'll get through this.''
To a point, Stevie. Her most intense song about Buckingham was Silver Springs, which was intended for Rumours but ended up as a B-side to Go Your Own Way (the yin and yang of a relationship right there on one seven-inch disc). The lyrics to Silver Springs are excoriating. 'I know I could have loved you / But you would not let me,' Nicks sang, before going on: 'You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loved you.'
A live performance of Fleetwood Mac performing Silver Springs in 1997 is one of the most impassioned and powerful pieces of live music imaginable – explaining why it has more than 50 million views on YouTube. The intensity of the song is breath-taking. As Nicks sings, she constantly glances at Buckingham, to her left, until they both hold each other's stares and sing directly at each other. ' Never get away,' Nicks sings with fervid intensity, her anger – decades on – never far from the surface.
I saw Fleetwood Mac play in Dublin in 2015 and the interplay between Nicks and Buckingham was still captivatingly intense. There was a sense of unfinished business there, of two former lovers whose issues with each other remained unresolved.
Whatever these cryptic new posts mean, it's a chapter that remains tantalisingly open. After all this time, they're still finishing each other's sentences.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Harry Styles fans are convinced the star's brand Pleasing is launching a VERY naughty product after cryptic clip
Harry Styles fans are convinced they have cracked the code as to what his new product launch is. The One Direction star, 31, is set to release a new item for his accessory and fragrance brand at 11am on July 25. 'You've been so good at communicating what you want,' an email drop sent out to subscribers teased, as it revealed customers can purchase the new launch online or in person at 251 Elizabeth Street, NYC. And the brand has hinted at what the new product could be in a series of clips featuring telephones, people gasping and vibrating objects. Now, fans of the Watermelon Sugar hitmaker are convinced they have figured out exactly what Pleasing are launching - and it's raunchy. Reading between the lines, fans think Harry is launching a range of adult toys, including vibrators and lubricant. Commenting on Pleasing's Instagram, fans said: 'Harry styles adult toys before HS4? Bros priorities,'; 'Button, milk, gasp. he'll drop sexual wellness products. 18+ only,'; 'We about to get adult toys before HS4,'; 'Is this something sex related? Like sex toys or lubricants related? lol sorry,'; 'Adult toys before hs4 is kinda crazy guys,'; 'Instead of being in the studio we get s3x toys from harry... okay?'; 'I smell harry flavored lubricants hahahaha,'; 'S3x toys?'; 'Harry showing up just to advertise the vibrator,'; 'Pleasing vibrators here we come.' Meanwhile taking to X, formerly Twitter, fans added: 'No it's just too funny for me to think that harry styles will release sex toys and lubricants on the brand he founded... like "oh what does pleasing sell?" "oh you see we have nail polish, perfumes, apparel, some face/lip products, vibrators and dildos oh and of course lube" 'Can't believe harry styles started in a boyband and ended up selling vibrators. proud of his growth in every sense,'; 'Never did I think we'd be getting a Harry styles vibrator but here we are,'; 'Harry styles is releasing a vibrator and you expect me to move on with my day?!' 'You've been so good at communicating what you want,' an email drop sent out to subscribers teased, as it revealed customers can purchase the new launch online or in person at 251 Elizabeth Street, NYC Now, fans of the Watermelon Sugar hitmaker are convinced they have figured out exactly what Pleasing are launching - and it's raunchy Meanwhile taking to X, formerly Twitter, fans added: 'No it's just too funny for me to think that harry styles will release sex toys and lubricants' It comes after Harry partied into the early hours with pals at Glastonbury last month, where he was seen getting very close to 28-year-old producer Ella Kenny. In a video obtained by The Sun, the pair could be seen sharing an intimate kiss on the dance floor, sending Harry's impassioned fans wild. Bournemouth University graduate Ella put on a leggy display in a pair of tiny black short and a simple white button-up shirt as she wrapped an arm around friends Nia Archives and Jessica Skeete-Cross. DJ and singer-songwriter Nia is a prominent star on the drum'n'bass scene, having been nominated for a Brit Award and Mercury Prize and opened for Beyoncé during her 2023 Renaissance tour. While Jessica is a stylist for ES Magazine, who has worked with big names like Maya Jama, Robert Pattison, Letitia Wright, Cara Delevingne and in an interesting twist - Harry's ex-girlfriend, Taylor Russell. Taylor and Harry dated for 14 months, reportedly striking up their romance in March 2023, before their split in May last year. During their relationship, the actress appeared on the cover of ES Magazine in November 2023, which Jessica styled and proudly shared to her Instagram. Ella is a producer who has worked at a studio in London for around three years, producing 'crossplatform content' for businesses such as record companies and fashion brands. She has worked alongside Nia, as well as produced music videos for artists such as Rachel Chinouriri, and Slow Thai, as well as Anne-Marie and Aitch's huge hit PSYCHO. She and Harry already knew each other prior to the festival, but it remains unknown if their passionate exchange was a one-off. Reportedly, the Watermelon Sugar star was in the VIP section with a group of pals when Ella arrived and kissed him on the cheek multiple times, before he led her to the dance floor where they shared their very public smooch. Speaking about the kiss to The Sun, a source said: 'Harry and Ella had fun together at Glastonbury and shared a kiss on the dancefloor. 'They had a good time in the moment but it doesn't mean it will evolve into anything. They just got on and had a snog. 'But she seems like a normal, down-to-earth girl which is different from some of the big stars he's dated before.'


Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
The moment Ozzy Osbourne's rarely-seen daughter Jessica revealed he'd become a granddad for the first time as she's snubbed from family's statement announcing his death
The moment Ozzy Osbourne 's rarely-seen daughter Jessica revealed he'd become a grandfather for the first time has been revealed, following his death on Tuesday. The Black Sabbath frontman, had six children, including three with his wife Sharon, with his younger children Kelly and Jack known for appearing with him on reality show The Osbournes. Ozzy also had two children with his first wife Thelma Riley, son Louis and daughter Jessica, and he adopted his wife's son Eliot. However, Jessica and Eliot were noticeably absent from the family's statement announcing Ozzy's death, which was signed by his children Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis, along with wife Sharon. Jessica has been noticeably silent since her father's death, and she's remained largely out of the spotlight. She was the person who made Ozzy a grandfather for the first time, and despite never appearing in The Osbournes' TV show, she was mentioned in the episode 'Smells Like Teen Spirits,' when Ozzy learned that she had welcomed a daughter. The moment Ozzy Osbourne 's rarely-seen daughter Jessica made a surprise appearance in the late rocker's reality show has been revealed In a clip from the episode, which aired in 2002, Ozzy was told that his daughter's husband Ben would be calling him when 'the baby was born.' An off-camera producer asked Ozzy if that was 'his daughter,' and the rocker nodded, before insisting he thought the baby was going to be a boy. The episode then cut to the next scene, where Ozzy revealed that his first grandchild was a girl named Isabelle. After one of his daughter Kelly's pals quipped that he was a 'little grandfather,' he hit back: 'Don't f*****g say those words.' Jessica has two daughters, Isabelle and Kitty, and one son called Harry. Ozzy had three children from his first marriage, and three from his marriage to Sharon, whom he remained married to until his death. Before tying the knot to Sharon, he married his first wife Thelma Riley in 1971 after meeting her in a Birmingham nightclub. Together, they welcomed children Jessica and Louis, although details surrounding their birthdays are unclear. After one of his daughter Kelly's pals quipped that he was a 'little grandfather,' he hit back: 'Don't f*****g say those words' Ozzy also adopted Thelma's five-year-old son Elliot from a previous relationship. Louis now works as a DJ and married actress Louise Lennon in 2004. The pair tied the knot in 2004, with Ozzy unable to attend after suffering major injuries after being injured in a quad bike accident. In the 2011 documentary film God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, produced by his son Jack, he revealed that he could not even remember when Louis and Jessica were born. Louis also opened up about growing up with a drunk father. 'When he was around and he wasn't [drunk], he was a great father,' he said in the documentary. 'But that was kind of seldom, really. I just have a lot of memories of him being drunk, random s**t like driving cars across fields and crashing them in the middle of the night and stuff like that. 'It's not good for family life, really.' His older sister, Jessica added: 'I don't remember being put to bed or having a bath by dad or anything like that. 'I wouldn't say he was there for us, no, never on sports day, school trip, parents' evening. He wasn't like that, no.' After divorcing Thelma, Osbourne went on to marry Sharon in 1982. Their first child, daughter Aimee was born September 2, 1983. One year later, they welcomed daughter Kelly (born October 27, 1984), and on November 8, 1985, their son, Jack was born. Aimee - who is also a singer and performs under her initials ARO - was born in London and raised in California until the age of 16 but moved out of the family home as filming for The Osbournes began in the early 2000s. Reflecting on her decision to not appear on the show she said: 'Back then, I still felt I was trying to figure out who I was in the chaos of family life, so why on earth would I want that portrayed on television? 'I wanted to protect myself, my parents, my siblings, too. They were very young, very impressionable.' She later defended her decision in 2008 and told The Independent: 'I'm not some weirdo depressed daughter that's afraid of the world and locks herself in her room all day. 'I just didn't choose to do the show. I want to be a singer, and I felt if I'd stayed with the Osbournes and done the whole thing I would have been typecast right away. '[Sharon] was hurt, and we definitely had a tough time with disagreements. I'm more reserved and my private life is very important.' Aimee also has a strained relationship with younger sister Kelly, who confirmed in an interview four years ago that they are estranged. Appearing on the Dax Shepard podcast - Armchair Expert in 2021, Kelly revealed: 'We don't talk. We're just really different. 'She doesn't understand me and I don't understand her.' Back in 2015 Aimee admitted to The Independent that she and Kelly were not on close terms and said: 'I wouldn't say there is an ease between us, but there is an acceptance. Do we socialise? No.' However, Aimee and brother Jack's bond is much better, with the pair both running production company Osbourne Media together. On Wednesday, MailOnline revealed that an air ambulance was called to Osbourne's multi-million-pound country home as paramedics battled to save his life. The Thames Valley air ambulance landed in a field close to Welders House, the singer's Grade II listed mansion on Tuesday morning at around 10.30am. It's believed that calls from Welders House had led call handlers to believe that the Black Sabbath singer's life was in the balance. A chopper was dispatched from Thames Valley ambulance base at RAF Benson in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, some 27 miles from the mansion which is located close to the village of Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. The crew were airborne for around 15 minutes before landing in the grounds of the mansion and were then with Osbourne for around two hours, trying but failing to save his life, it's understood. News of the helicopter drama is the first insight into the finer details of the singer's death. News of Ozzy's death was shared by the Osbourne family in a statement on Tuesday, which read: 'It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. 'He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time. Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.' Ozzy revealed earlier this year that he could no longer walk amid his years-long battle with Parkinson's disease. However, he still managed to reunite with his bandmates Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward for their final gig earlier this month. Amid his ailing health, Ozzy admitted he was unsure whether to perform standing up or sitting down following a series of spinal operations. The singer was in strict training, which even saw his blood pressure being taken 15 times a day. He explained: 'I have got this trainer guy who helps people get back to normal. It's hard going, but he's convinced that he can pull it off for me. I'm giving it everything I've got. 'It's endurance. The first thing that goes when you're laid up is your stamina. 'I am having my blood pressure taken 15 times a day.. I've got this f***ing device on my finger. It's a monitor to say how my heart rate is.' Ozzy vowed to do the 'best he can' during his final show after his string of health concerns in recent years.


Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Madonna hasn't had a fresh idea in decades
'The future, the future, the future,' trills Madonna, on stuttering repeat in her latest album, Veronica Electronica, out Friday. And if you think the future of which she sings sounds suspiciously like Madonna's own past, well, that might be the point. Veronica Electronica is a remix album featuring tracks from her 16-million selling 1998 blockbuster Ray of Light. Now that was a moment when Madonna really did sound like the future, working with British ambient electronic producer William Orbit to create a thrilling, sinuous mix of science fictional synthetic sound with dance-floor beats drawing on trip-hop, drum & bass and techno interweaving with lyrically rich songcraft, engaging with parenthood and personal growth through a mystical new age lens. Madonna was turning 40, a dangerous age for a mainstream pop star, with its implications of dawning middle age in a youth-obsessed medium. Yet Ray of Light was a triumph. After the oversexed experiments of 1992's Erotica and 1994's Bedtime Stories, Madonna found a way to make grown-up pop music that still sounded at the cutting edge of things. I think it remains her most mature work, and features her most accomplished singing, a consequence of vocal training she underwent for her starring role in the 1996 film Evita. It spawned five global hit singles, propelling her towards a further imperial period, albeit with fun but less progressive albums such as Music (2000) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) casting her as reigning Queen of the Dance rather than bold pioneer of new pop frontiers. It is curious that Madonna is revisiting Ray of Light now. It is not an anniversary, and there seems to be no pressing reason for its release. Indeed, it is not even new. Veronica Electronica features seven re-edited and sequenced B-sides and DJ mixes from the 1990s, plus one extra demo presumably tagged on to make completists feel like they are getting something previously unavailable. The disembodied repetition of the phrase 'the future' on a remix of Nothing Really Matters seems misleading when shorn of context. The original line from which it was taken was 'Nothing takes the past away / Like the future.' And here she is, nearly three decades later, fetishising her own past. Perhaps that is all pop is capable of now, when everything is arguably a remix, remodel or reformatting of things that have gone before. There is a confluence of reasons for that, mainly bound up with the rise of streaming as the dominant distribution method and its emphasis on algorithmic curation as the chosen way of organising music. The slow death of old music media (magazines, radio) has contributed to a homogenisation of musical discovery, with algorithms predicated to deliver similar-sounding tracks to keep listener retention high, reinforcing familiarity rather than innovation. At the same time there has been a weird blurring of genres, with an emphasis on mood and contextual lifestyle playlists serving audiences whose access to the entire history of music at the press of a button has arguably led to less tribal division. In the modern musical soundscape, anything goes and everything mixes together. Throw into that the growing influence of AI creation tools – which by their very definition are only ever going to regurgitate what has come before – and you have a situation where past and contemporary music are becoming indistinguishable. Here we are, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and the most notable new musical trend of recent years has been the rise of country music. Rock (a genre long written off as on the verge of death) is experiencing the strongest new listener growth according to a mid-year report from American entertainment data company Luminate (whilst Christian / Gospel music is also surging). Meanwhile, the top trending stars in the world right now (via industry statistics site Chartmetric) look very familiar, including four pop facing singer-songwriters (Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish and Bruno Mars), two dance pop superstars (Rihanna and Lady Gaga, both of whom owe a considerable debt to Madonna), one veteran rapper (Drake) and a durable teen idol (Justin Bieber). Madonna herself currently registers as the 58 th most popular artist in the world, which might not seem impressive on her imperious terms until you consider that she is one of only six artists in the top 100 who was making music before the internet was unleashed upon us (the others being Michael Jackson at 39, Queen at 71, AC/DC at 75, Elton John at 80, The Beatles at 94 and Fleetwood Mac at 98). There is, of course, a relentless deluge of new musical artists vying for attention, yet nothing feels like a distinctive break with the past. It would be nice to think that her remix album shows Madonna reorienting herself by focussing on her finest work, except it is shoddily done, a repackage of old remixes that are already out of date and add nothing to her story. Really, I suspect it is just about releasing product, because the only way to stay visible and competitive in this relentless smorgasbord of endless choice is to keep providing content for algorithms to gorge on. It has been six years since Madonna released a new album (the underwhelming Madame X) but in that time she has completed two world tours, released a major compilation, and is currently developing a Netflix TV series about her life (most likely starring Jennifer Garner). If you have nothing new to offer, just remix the past. Everybody else is doing it. On my radar Earth: The Legendary Lost 1969 Tapes (Big Bear Records). With weirdly prescient timing, Ozzy Osbourne 's first known recordings are soon to be released, with the group that would become Black Sabbath. This is a set of demos recorded at Zella studios in 1969, that demonstrate what a wildly inventive and fearsome band Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward already were, conjuring something between heavy blues and frenetic free jazz. Add a dose of the occult, and heavy metal was born later the same year. Ozzy was ultimately laid low by Parkinson's disease. Coincidentally, I have been reading an advance copy of The Tremolo Diaries: Life on the Road and Other Diseases by Justin Currie, in which the Del Amitri band leader offers an acerbically entertaining and unsentimental account of touring whilst struggling with a Parkinson's diagnosis. He describes it as 'the uneasy feeling another man is growing inside of me and is slowly seizing the means of control.' It will be published by New Modern on Aug 28. I was much taken with this passage by Justin on his experience of hearing modern pop in a shopping mall: 'I'm staring down the barrel of Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran's weirdly thin music. It ticks all the boxes that pop needs to tick – pretty tunes, catchy hooks, lyrics with a modicum of real feeling. It just feels like all the guts have been taken out. At the end, we'll be living underground, drinking the filtered urine of the rich while Elon Musk transmits this sonic anaesthetic from his throne on the moon.' I don't think he's a fan. How do you solve a problem like Kanye West? Unarguably one of the most influential artists of our times, the reportedly mentally ill rapper-producer has made himself persona non grata in pop culture with his embracing of Nazi symbology, blatant anti-Semitism and self-hating racism. He's got new music coming this week, dropping more weirdly lo-fi tracks for his album in progress Bully. Don't expect to read many reviews of the most controversial man in pop, yet whilst researching my article about Madonna, I was surprised to find West is still ranking incredibly high on Chartmetric's assessment of currently trending artists. He appears at no 33 on their chart, with over 60 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and 105 million monthly views on YouTube. Cancellation is clearly not what it used to be.