Mick Fleetwood‘s ex-wife Jenny Boyd recently talked to Fox News about Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, and her experiences with the rock and rock elite in her latest book Jenny Juniper: A Journey Beyond the Muse (Urbane Publications).
Here are excerpts from the interview relevant to Fleetwood Mac:
You met Mick Fleetwood at age 15. What made him different?
I would say I was 16. I didn’t go out with him until about a year later because I felt my best friend had a big crush on him. But when we started to go out, there was something about him that felt in some ways familiar, right from the beginning.
We were both unbearably shy and horribly shy with each other. But we could both sense this energy between us. I remember when he first held my hand. You just felt that energy, that coolness. And of course, we came from similar backgrounds. There was definitely a sense that we understood each other right from the start.
You got to witness music history when Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was being created. At any point, did you ever think the album was going to completely change music?
No, I didn’t. I didn’t think far ahead. But you certainly felt that magic during rehearsal, like something was happening. Their harmonies reminded me when The Beatles first came on the scene. Their harmonies seemed to be the thing that was so catchy and attractive. You could just tell that something special was going on.
For Mick Fleetwood, the band came first. How did you cope with that as a wife and mother? There must have been a sense of loneliness for you while trying to keep the home life together.
Absolutely. There was a lot of loneliness. I would hang out with them in the studio and have a drink with them. But there was loneliness because I felt like I was bringing our children up alone. [Mick] spent his time in the studio. They weren’t coming home at night because they were recording and it had gone on further than expected.
And they were under a lot of pressure. The music was either his wife or his mistress. I’m not sure which one it was. But in some ways, I understood it. It was an exciting time for them and the music was wonderful. But for me, deep down, being the mother of two small children, it was a lonely place. I didn’t know anybody else from our little crowd who had children.
You have said nothing but wonderful things about Stevie Nicks. How did you get to that point?
Well you know, that went on all those years ago. I remember a few years ago, I was in Paris. I was standing on the side of the stage and just watching [the band perform]. I just thought, “Gosh, we had been through such an extraordinary time together over the years. And we all somehow survived it.”
I think it’s more a feeling of, I understood. She was obviously very pretty. And if you’re creating with somebody and constantly on the road, constantly singing together and just experiencing this euphoria up on the stage — there was bound to be an attraction.
Yes, it was devastating. But after all these years, it’s all water under the bridge. Mick and I are great friends. We are parents and grandparents. We have a love. And I think we all kind of have a love for each other because we’ve all experienced such extraordinary times together.
She did apologize years later. I remember she looked at me and said, “I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I haven’t said it before. But it was one of those things that happened. I said, “I forgave you years ago, but I appreciate you saying this.” There were no bad vibes or anything. And crazy things happen all the time, like Mick and I getting divorced and then seeing each other. It got to the point where we would say, “Oh that’s right, we’re divorced.” *Laughs*. And then we remarried. The whole thing was just surreal.
Not many people can say they’ve married their significant other twice. Do you have any regrets?
Do I regret marrying him twice? No. I still wanted it to work. I really, really wanted us to be together. Always. I never wanted to get divorced. I wanted to be together for our children. And it was so hard, you know. It was like hitting my head against the wall, but I’d come back for me.
And I kept hoping, obviously in a very naive way, that it’ll be better. It will work this time. I kept hoping that it would work until finally, I realized that was it. And I think we were bad for each other in that way because I believe he really wanted it to work, too. There was this thing where we just couldn’t let go of each other, but it was so difficult to live together.
