It's a little weird and unseemly, given how long ago it all went down, but the behind-the-scenes breakups that plagued (and perhaps fueled) Fleetwood Mac's classic 'Rumours' album remain a topic of intense fascination for many -- which is why Stevie Nicks delved once more into the end of her affair with Lindsey Buckingham during a recent sit-down with Oprah Winfrey.

In a clip from the segment, embedded above, Nicks traces the end of their relationship to the end of 'Rumours,' saying, "We were just finishing up the end of our 12 songs in Sausalito for 'Rumours' and I said, 'We're done. I think that this is over, and we both know now that no matter what it takes, we're going to keep Fleetwood Mac together. Our breaking up is not going to break up this band and I'm not going to quit and neither are you -- and we were done."

But of course they weren't really done -- not in terms of being able to make a truly clean break, anyway. "It's really hard when you break up with somebody, or somebody breaks up with you, and you're in this band; guess who you have to see in the next day in the hotel in the breakfast room? That person," she pointed out. "It's really hard. And by the way, guess who you get to go on stage with the next night? The person who either broke up with you or you broke up with, and you have to go on stage and be like, 'Fantastic' -- because really, the band meant everything. The band was way more important than each separate person's problems, and we knew that."

Continued Nicks, "So we never, ever, with everything that happened to us, ever, let love affairs break Fleetwood Mac up. But Lindsey always blamed Fleetwood Mac for the loss of me. Had we not joined Fleetwood Mac we would've continued on with our music but we probably would've gotten married, and we probably would've had a child."

Mulling that alternate reality, Nicks mused, "It would have been a different life. And it's very possible that we might have gotten married and had a family and still done our music. We were still young enough then that destiny could have taken us another way -- but destiny did not take us that way. Destiny took us straight into Fleetwood Mac."

Both Buckingham and Nicks, of course, will be on hand for Fleetwood Mac's upcoming tour, scheduled to kick off in April.

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