New Book: Christine McVie (of Fleetwood Mac)

In unearthed interviews, Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie reveals the truth of her chaotic cocaine-fueled orgies and reckless partying that nearly killed her

• By leading British rock music biographer Lesley-Ann Jones, author of Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie

Hunched over a glass of cider, staring into a candle flame night after night, nothing much about her later days said multi-millionaire rock star.

Who would have thought that the rangy blonde in a shabby tweed jacket was Christine McVie, the singer and song-writing legend who once toured the globe with Fleetwood Mac and contributed the lion's share of hits to their 1977 triumph 'Rumours', one of the best-selling albums in music history?

The pub in question, The Rose in Wickhambreaux, close to England's historic city of Canterbury in the country's southeast, was anybody else's chocolate-box idyll.

But to Christine, it was a daily escape from the fortress in which she had imprisoned herself: a large Tudor house and estate nearby, The Quaives, where she resided alone.

That Chris was there at all, however lonely, was no small triumph. Fleetwood Mac had lived so recklessly, it was a miracle any of them survived.

The biggest group in the world following their 'Rumours' success, they had once acquired mansions the way the rest of us buy books.

They purchased a private Boeing jet and became their own travelling orgy, bathing – sometimes literally – in champagne and wafting from continent to continent on clouds of cocaine.

Band members slept in specially redecorated hotel suites and indulged relentlessly in sex with friends and strangers, often in limousines the size of small yachts.

Pictured circa 1977, left to right: John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood

Fleetwood Mac had lived so recklessly, it was a miracle any of them survived. (Pictured, left to right: Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood in 1977)

Fleetwood Mac eventually upgraded to a jumbo jet and became their own travelling orgy, bathing – sometimes literally – in champagne and wafting from continent to continent on clouds of cocaine.

It was said that Fleetwood Mac made even Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones look like the Salvation Army.

Drugs and drink might have stimulated their vast success – and all five band members' consumption of both was astronomical – yet the debauched, hedonistic dream almost killed them.

I first knew Chris during the '80s when we both lived in Los Angeles. I found her again at her estate near Canterbury after we each moved back to England, where we discussed writing her autobiography. We never got around to it.

When she died two years ago at the age of 79, only a handful of people had known she was gravely ill. In tribute to the woman whose lifestyle once almost destroyed her, I have written her life anyway in a new biography of rock's most reluctant superstar.

A war baby born in England's Lake District, Chris's childhood was unusual. Her music teacher father, Cyril Perfect's, unrequited dream was to play first violin in a symphony orchestra. Her mother, Beatrice, a faith healer, psychic and medium, had a spirit guide and danced with ghosts.

Chris studied piano, discovered the blues and enrolled at art school, thinking she might eventually teach sculpture.

But she found the local live gig scene, teamed up with blues outfit Chicken Shack and was even voted Female Vocalist of the Year in a music magazine's 1969 readers' poll. The previous year, at the age of 25, she married John McVie, bass player with the recently formed Fleetwood Mac.

Yet a professional music career was the last thing on Chris's mind; her ambition, then, was motherhood.

In tribute to the woman whose lifestyle once almost destroyed her, I have written her life anyway in a new biography of rock's most reluctant superstar, said biographer Lesley-Ann Jones (above right with McVie in 2015)

When Fleetwood Mac rented a large Hampshire house in southeast England in the county of Hampshire and they all moved in together, Chris happily cooked, cleaned and painted walls. The band coaxed her into contributing keys and backing vocals and soon she was an inextricable part of it.

The group relocated to California in the mid-70s, adding Lindsey Buckingham and girlfriend Stevie Nicks to the line-up. It was there on the West Coast that real success arrived and hedonism took hold.

Cocaine was acquired in bulk. On the road, each evening ahead of the gig, both band and crew would queue for their rations. The time allowed for the apportioning of drugs was even listed on their daily tour schedule.

During recording sessions, coke was dispensed in the studio like cups of tea.

White powder 'peeled off the walls in every room of the studio,' confided Mick Fleetwood.

On stage during a show, said Christine, 'the boys were served their doses in Heineken bottle tops. Stevie and I did the tiny little spoons, and I washed mine down with dainty glasses of champagne.'

'But…I got through bucketsful. We were all permanently intoxicated: addicted to booze and drugs, but ultimately to recklessness itself.'

Singing superstar Stevie Nicks and drummer Mick Fleetwood were the most prodigious users.

Cocaine was acquired in bulk. On the road, each evening ahead of the gig, both band and crew would queue for their rations.

During recording sessions, coke was dispensed in the studio like cups of tea. McVie is pictured aboard the band's private jet in 1975

McVie found her dream home, spent eight years renovating it, learned to cook, read a thousand books, watched TV, and drowned her sorrows and loneliness in wine and pills

Cocaine, Fleetwood once said, 'turned us into nutcases.'

Nicks later claimed that she spent more than $1 million on coke during the ten years of her addiction. To this day, she has a coin-sized hole in her septum, the result of snorting the drug.

As for their tour rider – the demands that bands make of their promoters when they are on the road – the Mac's were off the chart. Not only did they insist on a fleet of 14 sleek, black, polished limousines permanently at their disposal in every city, but also demanded that hotel suites be redecorated for them.

Stevie would not stay in a hotel unless her rooms were repainted pink, with a white grand piano brought in specially. 'The piano often had to be hoisted up the side of the building and in through a window,' explained Chris.

'The expense was eyewatering. The funny bit was that Stevie couldn't even play piano … whereas I was the keyboard player, and I never asked for one!

'That was a bit of role play on her part,' Chris laughed. 'Part of Stevie saw herself as an accomplished pianist, whereas I never saw myself as a twirling chiffon-clad dervish up at the mic center-stage, commanding the audience from behind all that hair.

'She was the Welsh witch [Nicks liked to channel a Welsh goddess called Lady Rhiannon], I was Mother Nature and Mick was our resident raving lunatic.'

Devoid of inhibitions, the band became a sexual free-for-all.

Cocaine, Mick Fleetwood once said, 'turned us into nutcases.' (Pictured in 1978, left to right: Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie)

'We used to say that cocaine was our curse,' commented McVie (pictured with her arm around Stevie Nicks at the 20th Grammy Awards in 1978). 'But was the curse in fact the band itself?'

Nicks (at left with bandmate, and on-and-off partner, Lindsey Buckingham at the 1978 Grammy Awards) said she spent more than $1 million on coke during the 10 years of her addiction

'It was easier somehow to live in that permanent haze than face reality. Those things made me who I was. Until they made me who I wasn't,' said McVie, pictured at left in 1970

After Nicks separated from her long-term love, the guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick dumped his wife Jenny, the drummer and the frontwoman fell on each other and conducted a raging affair, not caring who knew about it.

Christine kept her liaisons outside the group and went for the crew instead, indulging in affairs with a sound engineer and a lighting director.

The fall-out from such a lifestyle was catastrophic.

Mick went bankrupt for the first time in 1984, never saved money and spent what he did have on multiple divorces.

John McVie suffered addiction-related seizures. Stevie was admitted to the Betty Ford clinic for her cocaine addiction, wound up addicted to prescription drugs instead, and underwent several abortions.

Like Christine, she has always mourned her childless state.

'We used to say that cocaine was our curse,' commented Christine. 'But was the curse in fact the band itself?'

Christine stayed with the band because she didn't know how to get out of it – but with a growing sense of unease.

Stevie Nicks would not stay in a hotel unless her rooms were repainted pink, with a white grand piano brought in specially

'The greater the success, the more money, the more opportunities, the bigger our world became, the more I found myself shrinking inside,' McVie told the author. (The band is pictured after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998)

'The greater the success, the more money, the more opportunities, the bigger our world became, the more I found myself shrinking inside,' she told me.

'[I was] reducing. Becoming … less. Less confident. I needed – I thought I needed – a man to validate me. I need coke and booze to fortify me to go on [stage].

'It was easier somehow to live in that permanent haze than face reality. Those things made me who I was. Until they made me who I wasn't.'

Chris quit Fleetwood Mac in 1990, blaming her departure on fear of flying, 'aviophobia'. She could no longer tour.

She found her dream home, spent eight years renovating it, learned to cook, read a thousand books, watched TV, and drowned her sorrows and loneliness in wine and pills. 

When she fell down the stairs one night, injuring her back, she realized that no one could hear her scream.

In 2014 – because she had nothing else to do – Chris went back to Fleetwood Mac, but the moment had passed.

She was, she told me, unlucky in love. Two failed marriages plus a disastrous engagement to Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson – and a chain gang of unsuitable others – had left her washed up and alone.

Christine (above right with Stevie Nicks and her dog) stayed with the band because she didn't know how to get out

'She was the Welsh witch [Nicks liked to channel a Welsh goddess called Lady Rhiannon], I was Mother Nature and Mick was our resident raving lunatic.' (McVie, at left, pictured with Nicks at Radio City in 2018)

'Rock stars age in dog years in reverse,' she told me cryptically. (McVie, above, performs at the O2 Arena in London in 2015)

'I need coke and booze to fortify me to go on [stage], said McVie, pictured in concert with Fleetwood Mac circa 1970

At the age of 25, she married John McVie, bass player with the recently formed Fleetwood Mac. The pair are pictured (above) at a party for the band in London on Feb. 20, 1969

Virtually every song she ever wrote – Little Lies, Everywhere, You Make Loving Fun, Songbird – had been about romantic love, and her lack of lifelong love and children would be her greatest regrets.

'Rock stars age in dog years in reverse,' she told me cryptically. 'We are much older than our chronological ages. We are weary and worn. Our skin is thin. We have seen too much. We have caused as much damage as we have survived.

'All that excess, all that having everything you could want, money no object: it drains and numbs you. It ceases to be exciting after a while.

'All you want is your mother's kitchen with a scrubbed table, old-fashioned crockery and a stool to put your feet up on. The road, my love, is never a luxury. It is a drudge.'

Write a song like Songbird, she said of her signature hit, 'and people assume you have all the answers. 'If only they knew.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14202857/Fleetwood-Mac-Christine-McVie-reveals-cocaine-sex-orgies-Rumours.html

Taqiya: Christmas Market Terrorist Attack in Magdeburg by Muslim Faker

Who is Magdeburg suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen? The dark history behind the Saudi doctor at the centre of the German Christmas attack

The softly spoken psychiatrist was unfailingly polite in his brief exchanges with his neighbours. One called him 'reserved but upright'.

Others assumed he was a decent sort too. Why else was he quoted in the liberal media as a humanitarian 'activist' who spoke out in support of female Saudi refugees fleeing oppression? But little about Dr Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was quite as it seemed.

Alone in his ground-floor flat in the medieval German town of Bernburg, his patina of respectability soon faded along with his ready smile. 

There, behind tightly drawn blinds, he worked long into the night on his computer, his 'kaleidoscope of paranoiac views' finding disturbing expression online.

Some of his tweets were incendiary and, with Germany struggling to make sense of Friday's slaughter in Magdeburg, terrifyingly prophetic.

'If Germany wants war, we will have it,' he posted in August. 'If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die or proudly go to prison… Germany will pay the price.'

Dr Al-Abdulmohsen seemed to uncover conspiracy at every turn. The police were out to get him, he raged. Kill him, even. Though quite why was never exactly clear.

Taleb A

Taleb A, the car-ramming perpetrator that killed 5 and injured more than 200 in an attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany

Police officers secure the area during the German Chancellor's visit to the scene of a vehicle-ramming attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg

Oblivious to all this, the neighbours in his apartment block were heartened by his professional status. However, some of his work colleagues at the Salus-Fachklinikum psychiatric facility thought otherwise.

According to court records, he 'viciously attacked' a colleague in 2018 but, strangely, the incident did not result in his dismissal.

And as the years passed and he grew increasingly angry with the German government and legal system, he continued to post vague but violent threats online.

Those in Germany's Saudi community viewed him as 'erratic'. One said there was 'something wrong with his mind'. Someone else called him a 'pariah'.

What eventually tipped this man of contradictions over the edge isn't exactly clear, at least not yet. Just as little is known about his personal life. None of his neighbours had ever seen him with a partner 'or in the company of anyone'.

But what is evident is that his catastrophic date with destiny was a long time coming – and that there were plenty of warnings along the way.

The perpetrator was an Islamist terrorist. The clues were obvious: the Christian target, the familiar attack method. We had been here before. Not just in Germany – where, in 2016, a Tunisian man with links to the Islamic State (ISIS) group, drove a truck into crowds gathered at a church market in Berlin – but also in Nice and London.

That the suspect turned out to be from Saudi Arabia only served to confirm the theory. 

Plush toys, candles and floral tributes lie near the site where a car drove into a crowd at a Magdeburg Christmas market

Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day

Debris and empty stalls are seen on a closed Christmas market one day after a car-ramming attack in Magdeburg

In a five-minute audio message posted shortly before the Magdeburg attack, he said he held the German nation responsible for crimes including the killing of Socrates in 399 BC.

He also accused the authorities of stealing a USB stick from his post box and said he held 'the Germans responsible for what I am facing'.

Threatened with deportation in 2015, Dr Al-Abdulmohsen claimed he was now an ex-Muslim and an atheist and convinced officials that if he was sent back to Saudi Arabia he would be executed for apostasy.

He set up an Arabic internet forum called wearesaudis.net, giving practical advice to the country's dissidents, particularly, women, on how to claim asylum in Western countries.

The fake-dissident doctor helped dozens of Saudi women reach the West. But there were concerns over his obsessive behaviour.

Yasmine Mohammed, a Canadian-Palestinian ex-Muslim human rights activist who is now living in Europe, exchanged messages with him.

The scene of a vehicle-ramming attack is cordoned off at the Christmas market

A general view of the area, surrounded with police tape

Piled up clothes left behind at a cordoned off area at the scene of a vehicle-ramming attack

A barrier tape and police vehicles are seen in front of the entrance to the Christmas market in Magdeburg

Ms Mohammed told The Mail on Sunday that he complained about a German-based Saudi woman running an 'atheist refuge' for female asylum-seekers, accusing her of using the charity as a cover for a sex-trafficking ring.

'He started obsessively talking to me about her, and sending me documents to prove his point. I was once married to a jihadi, so I know how misogynistic men behave, and he was like that,' she said.

Ms Mohammed added: 'I thought his behaviour was unstable. I eventually told him that if he has all this evidence, why doesn't he go to the police. Eventually I told him not to contact me anymore and I blocked him.

'The last contact I had with him was September. But seeing what I saw [in the reports from Magdeburg] just made me sick. He claimed to be an atheist and that he was against ISIS, but he launched an attack like ISIS. He attacked Christians in a Christian market. It does not make sense.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14217709/Who-Magdeburg-suspect-Taleb-al-Abdulmohsen-Saudi-German-Christmas-attack.html

The Saudis warned the Germans over the suspect three times

In 2013 he was sentenced by a German court for 'disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes'.

Footage taken in the minutes after the crash, which happened at around 7pm, showed Taleb al-Abdulmohsen lying on the ground next to the smashed up BMW

Saudi Arabia recently issued three warnings about al-Abdulmohsen to German security authorities.

The Saudi suspect also took drugs before the attack.

Police had arrested him almost immediately after the attack, and said he tested positive for drugs.

The 50-year-old made a series of harrowing social media posts months before Friday's attack, including one where he vowed 'revenge will come soon, even if it costs me my life'. 

The initial death toll from the horrific attack on Friday evening had stood at two, but this has since risen to five.

Bild, another local news site, reported that 41 others were gravely injured, 86 people are receiving hospital treatment for serious injuries, while another 78 sustained minor injuries. 

German police can be seen aiming their weapons at Abdulmohsen shortly before his arrest. The terrorist shouted Allahu Akbar during the arrest. 

Bild reported that the car was driven 'at least 400m (1,300ft) across the Christmas market', per a police spokesperson

Local media reported that police raided al-Abdulmohsen's home in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg. Authorities added that he appears to have rented the car shortly before the attack. 

The black BMW tore through the traditional market in the centre of Magdeburg, southwest of Berlin on Friday night.

Police said the vehicle drove 'at least 400 metres across the Christmas market' leaving behind destruction, debris and broken glass on the city's central town hall square.

Horrific video footage showed countless revellers fleeing for their lives in the wake of the crash. Separate footage showed children crying loudly as several small crowds of people formed over those injured in the crash, in apparent attempts to help them. 

The Magdeburg Christmas market is located on the Old Market, directly next to Magdeburg Town Hall near the River Elbe, and was closed by organisers following the incident.

Local media reported that police raided al-Abdulmohsen's home in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg

Special police forces stand in front of an apartment building connected to the Christmas market attacker 

The Salus Fachklinikum Bernburg, a medical center for psychiatry, psychosomatics and psychotherapy, where al-Abdulmohsen worked as a doctor, in Bernburg

Crime scene tape hangs at the site where a car drove into a crowd at a Magdeburg Christmas market

A police vehicle stands at the site where a car drove into a crowd at a Magdeburg Christmas market

Al-Abdulmohsen was due in court on Thursday on charges of 'misuse of an emergency number' but failed to turn up, according to Der Spiegel.

Cuddly toys, flowers and candles have all been laid in tribute to those killed and injured in the attack on Friday 

Police officers stand at a barrier at Magdeburg's Christmas market on Saturday 

Police officers walk at the cordoned-off Christmas Market on Saturday morning 

Police were seen removing five large cardboard boxes containing evidence from the suspect's flat yesterday afternoon.

The killer lived on the ground floor of a smart apartment building in Bernburg some 30 miles away from the scene.

Several forensic officers were seen working inside the property for much of the day before removing the items in an unmarked police van.

Local residents said the police had arrived at the address at around 10pm on Friday night just hours after the deadly attack.

The killer lived in the apartment, where his name appears on the mailbox and doorbell, for several years.

'There were no sirens, just two vans arrived in the night and we had no idea what it was regarding,' one neighbour said.

'My cousin was working at the market at the time and saw what happened, he saw the bodies of children being thrown through the air by the car,' she added. 'But we didn't know the two were related at the time.'

Other neighbours said they had not known the suspect who kept to himself with his blinds drawn most of the time.

Taleb al-Abdulmohsen's name is displayed on the mailbox outside a house where he lived

The killer lived on the ground floor of this apartment building in Bernburg some 30 miles away from the scene

Al-Abdulmohsen's X bio reads: 'Germany chases female Saudi asylum seekers, inside and outside Germany, to destroy their lives."

He wrote on August 21: 'Is there a path to justice in Germany without bombing a German embassy or slaughtering German citizens indiscriminately? I have not found one."

In a post in December 2023, Abdulmohsen wrote: 'Germany is the only country – other than Saudi Arabia – that chases female Saudi asylum seekers all over the world to destroy their lives.' 

He wrote: 'Revenge will come soon. Even if it costs me my life. I will make the German nation pay the price of the crimes committed by its government against Saudi refugees.' 

In videos posted hours before the attack, he claimed that German authorities were opening his mail and stealing items including a USB stick. "I consider the Germans, as citizens, responsible for the persecution I am facing' he said in one video. 

The car that was crashed into a crowd of people at the Magdeburg Christmas market is seen on Saturday morning following the attack in Magdeburg, Germany

'If a Syrian citizen applies for asylum in Germany, the chance to be granted asylum is 99.8%… 

'While if a Saudi citizen applies for asylum in Germany, that chance is only 70%,"

'Germany is welcoming Syrians while simultaneously rejecting Saudis."

Special police officers at the scene after a car was driven into a crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, 20 December 2024

The Magdeburg attack came eight years and a day after a jihadist attack in Berlin in which a Tunisian man committed to the Islamic State group rammed a truck through the capital's Christmas market, claiming 13 lives.

In 2006 Taleb A. fled Saudi Arabia after being accused of rape and other serious crimes. He pretended to be an ex-Muslin in order to get asylum.

That aligns with the Muslim practice of Taqiya, an Islamic doctrine that permits lying and deception.

The killer was pro-Hamas: "We will return Gaza to Hamas and if you like we will bring Hamas to your neighborhood so you can taste it."

He is a Shia extremist.

Robert Spencer has analyzed the situation.

https://gellerreport.com/2024/12/the-anti-islam-jihadi.html/

One source told CNN the Saudis alerted Germany to the individual identified by German media as Taleb A. in four official notifications. The notifications, known as “Notes Verbal,” were sent to the German intelligence services, with one to the country’s foreign ministry. The source said all of the warnings were ignored.

The first warning came in 2007 and was connected to concerns held by Saudi authorities that Taleb A. had expressed radical views of varying kinds.

Extradition request allegedly refused: Saudi Arabia considers him a fugitive and requested his extradition from Germany between 2007 and 2008, the source said, adding that German authorities refused, citing concerns for the man’s safety should he return.

Elon Musk has labeled German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an “incompetent fool” and called on him to resign “immediately” in a comment posted on X.

"He was obviously a lunatic who should never have been allowed to enter Germany and should have been extradited when Saudi Arabia made the request. Suicidal empathy by the German government," said the world's richest man.

"The guy is obviously an unhinged psychopath who should not have been allowed into Germany and should have been extradited when Saudi Arabia made the request," he replied to another user.

Germany has been hit by several Islamic knife attacks in the past few months. A stabbing spree by a Syrian suspect in August left three people dead at a street festival in Solingen. In June, a cop was killed in a knife attack by an Afghan man. The cop was so clueless that he tackled the victim who was holding the terrorist down, giving the terrorist the chance to get up and stab and kill the cop.