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Lindsey Buckingham Sues Former Fleetwood Mac Bandmates Over His Firing

They’ll always have “Silver Springs.” Former Fleetwood Mac lead guitarist and singer Lindsey Buckingham filed a lawsuit against his bandmates after he was fired from their tour, Us Weekly confirms.

Buckingham, 69, claims in court documents filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, October 9, and obtained by Us that his manager informed him in January that the rock band “would proceed with its upcoming and already organized 2018 to 2019 concert tour without him.” He further alleges that “not a single member of the band” called him to share the news despite 43 years of friendship.

Lindsey Buckingham Sues Former Fleetwood Mac
Lindsey Buckingham attends MusiCares Person of the Year honoring Fleetwood Mac at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on January 26, 2018. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for NARAS

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Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and voluntarily left in 1987. He returned in 1997 and continued to perform with bandmates Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie until their final appearance as a fivesome at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year ceremony in late January.

Buckingham admits in his lawsuit that he asked the group to start their tour in November instead of August to allow him to release and promote a solo album that he had been working on. After his bandmates allegedly refused to accommodate his request, Buckingham delayed his solo project to tour with them. He says all five of them agreed to do approximately 60 concerts in North America.

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But then, on January 28, Buckingham’s manager told him that “the Fleetwood Mac tour was off.” The guitarist reached out to the band to question the decision. He claims in the documents that he did not find out until three days later that they “planned to tour without him” and had “suddenly cut [him] off entirely.”

Lindsey Buckingham Sues Former Fleetwood Mac
John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac pose on stage during the ‘Today’ show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City on October 9, 2014. D Dipasupil/FilmMagic

Buckingham is suing Nicks, 70, Fleetwood, 71, Christine, 75, and John, 72, for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage.

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The news comes one day after Buckingham opened up to Rolling Stone about his firing from the Grammy-winning band.

“Am I heartbroken about not doing another tour with Fleetwood Mac? No, because I can see that there are many other areas to look into,” he told the magazine. “The one thing that does bother me and breaks my heart is we spent 43 years always finding a way to rise above our personal differences and our difficulties to pursue and articulate a higher truth. That is our legacy. That is what the songs are about. This is not the way you end something like this.”

Fleetwood Mac are currently on tour with Buckingham’s replacements, former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House’s Neil Finn.

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