Christine McVie may have been behind some of Fleetwood Mac 's most revered love songs but the musician herself admitted that she was "very, very unlucky in love".
The singer-songwriter died at the age of 79 on Wednesday following a short illness. Her family said in a statement that she had died peacefully at hospital.
Christine was responsible for huge hits such as Songbird, Don't Stop, and Little Lies for the British-American rock band, which was founded in London in 1967 and sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the most successful groups ever.
She was not originally in Fleetwood Mac, joining the band in 1970 but was already married to bass guitarist John in 1968.
Their most famous line-up consisted of Mick Fleetwood, Christine, John, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, with the group managing to survive the relationship break-ups which inspired 1977's Rumours.
Christine had previously been open about the difficulties of her relationship with her bandmate in the intervening years between joining the band and her divorce, which was settled in the midst of a Fleetwood Mac tour, but the pair remained friends and maintained their professional relationship.
She told Rolling Stone in 1977 : "We were very happy. Very happy for probably three years and then the strain of me being in the same band as him started to take its toll. When you’re in the same band as somebody, you’re seeing them almost more than 24 hours a day.
"You start to see an awful lot of the bad side ’cause touring is no easy thing. There’s a lot of drinking . . . John is not the most pleasant of people when he’s drunk. Very belligerent. I was seeing more Hyde than Jekyll.
"I broke up with John in the middle of a tour. I was aware of it being rather irresponsible. I had to do it for my sanity. It was either that or me ending up in a lunatic asylum."
However, following her divorce to John McVie and a 17-year marriage to Eddie Quintela, which ended in 2003, she admitted that being part of the band was the reason for being unlucky in love.
In the 2005 book Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac: Interviews and Encounters, Christine said: "I’ve been very, very unlucky in love. It’s been a real drag.
"I’ve had my good times. No, both Stevie [Nicks] and I, we were married to Fleetwood Mac. That was what we did and it was a harsh marriage.
"During those years there was no time for anything else and we used to moan about how we were married to the band. During our thirties and forties that is what we did. There was no time for relationships of our own."
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