A new biography of Stevie Nicks has revealed claims that her relationship with Lindsay Buckingham was fraught with bullying and abuse.
The Queen of Rock and Roll’s troubled relationship with her Fleetwood Mac bandmate is laid bare in Stephen Davis’ new book, Gold Dust Woman, which hits the stands on November 21.
In one incident in 1987, the couple were arguing in front of the rest of the band when Buckingham ‘manhandled Stevie, slapped her face and bent her backward over the hood of his car,’ the book says.
‘He put his fingers around her neck and started to choke her,’ the book says. The other bandmates intervened and told him not to lay a hand on her again.
‘I thought he was going to kill me,’ Nicks said.
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham (seen in 1998) met in college and went on to form a duo before joining Fleetwood Mac. A new biography details their turbulent relationship
In 1975, the book says Buckingham flew into a rage when Nicks was hesitant to take off her blouse in photos for the cover art on their debut album (pictured)
Nicks, who between her solo work and Fleetwood Mac has produced more than 40 top-50 hits, first met Buckingham when she was a senior and he was a junior at Menlo-Atherton High School in California.
They were in a Christian youth music group together when Buckingham started playing California Dreamin’ and she harmonized.
The new book goes on sale November 21
The two were in a band called Fritz, when in 1971 they decided to strike out for Los Angeles and form their own rock duo, Buckingham Nicks.
Nicks waited tables and cleaned houses to support them while Buckingham lounged all day smoking hash with his friends, including Warren Zevon, she has said.
‘I was making $50 a week cleaning,’ Nicks once recalled to Rolling Stone
‘I’d come in every day and have to step over these bodies. Me, I’ve just been cleaning. I’m tired. I’m pickin’ up their legs and cleaning under them and emptying out the ashtrays,’ she recalled.
The rock and roll couple were were posing for the cover art on their self-titled first album in 1975 when a photographer told her to take off her blouse, according to the book.
She didn’t want to do it, and Buckingham lost it, shouting: ‘Don’t be a f**king child, this is art!’
Then in 1975, drummer Mick Fleetwood recruited the pair to join Fleetwood Mac.
Nicks and Buckingham are seen performing together with Fleetwood Mac in 1979. Their turbulent relationship continued for years until Buckingham reformed his ways, the book says
‘When they first joined the band, Lindsey had control [over Nicks],’ Mick Fleetwood told Davis. ‘And, very slowly, he began to lose control. And he really didn’t like it.’
With Nicks fronting the act, the band shot to stardom. But Buckingham was madly jealous that Nicks’ songs ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Landslide,’ about their fading romance, were more popular than his own, the new biography claims.
When recording the band’s 1977 album, ‘Rumours,’ he demeaned Nicks’ songwriting and told her she needed him to make her songs sound halfway decent.
She said he was ‘hijacking’ her music and told her mother that Buckingham had had ‘thrown her down to the floor’ when the two were arguing.
Nicks is seen performing earlier this year. The new biography details her many relationships and struggles with drug addictions, and her successful music career
Even after Nick’s solo career took off, she remained with Fleetwood Mac, gritting her teeth as she and Buckingham would pretend to kiss after performing ‘Landslide’ every night on tour.
A representative for Buckingham did not immediately respond to request for comment from DailyMail.com.
After the confrontation in front of their bandmates in 1987, Buckingham reformed his ways and never laid hand on her again, according to the book.
The two made amends in 2013, and he agreed to treat her with respect.
Of course, by that time, Davis writes: ‘Stevie was an American legend, but Lindsey’s star would eventually fade away.’