NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) Lindsey Buckingham told CBS News he has settled his lawsuit against Fleetwood Mac, saying he was booted from the band for alleged bad behavior at the MusiCares event, with manager Irving Azoff delivering the bad news.
“I’m happy enough with it,” Buckingham said. “I’m not out there trying to twist the knife at all. I’m trying to look at this with some level of compassion, some level of wisdom.”
“It hurt for a while,” he added. “I did walk around for a few months with a visceral reaction to that.”
Buckingham, who was one of the driving forces/songwriters that led Mac’s ascension to superstardom with his contributions to albums like Rumours, played with the band when they were honored at the MusiCares Benefit Grammy show in January but claims that an alleged smirk during the band’s time onstage led to his ouster.
“Irving Azoff called me up and he was basically screaming at me,” Buckingham said. “He was screaming at me on the phone saying, ‘You’ve really done it this time.’ And I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, ‘Stevie never wants to be on stage with you again,’ and I’m going, ‘Why?'”
Bandmate Stevie Nicks had apparently complained that Buckingham smirked behind her when she gave her acceptance speech and that was apparently the final straw. Azoff told him Nicks didn’t like his behavior at the event, according to Buckingham.
Fleetwood Mac had claimed that Buckingham didn’t want to move his solo tour dates to make way for the Mac outing, but Buckingham disputes that, saying he agreed to postpone the tour but it was too late.
“It appeared to me that she was looking for something to hang on me, in order to instigate some kind of coup. Irving told me a couple of days later that she’d given the band an ultimatum and either I had to go or she was going to go,” Buckingham said.
Fleetwood Mac has been touring with two artists to take the place of one: former Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn (Mac is known for performing “Don’t Dream It’s Over” in the current set).
