Christine McVie has died at 79. She was part of Fleetwood Mac, writing some of their best known songs including many tracks on Rumours, one of the bestselling albums of all time. A statement said that McVie died peacefully at a hospital in the company of her family.Her bandmates led the celebrations of McVie’s life. “There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie,” they said in a group statement.“She was truly one of a kind, special and talented beyond measure. She was the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life. We were so lucky to have a life with her. Individually and together, we cherished Christine deeply and are thankful for the amazing memories we have. She will be so very missed.”

8 Christine McVie Was A Member Of Iconic Rock Band Fleetwood Mac

While working as a window dresser in a London department store, Christine McVie joined her friends band Chicken Shack as a keyboardist and vocalist. She would later describe them as a “mediocre sort of white blues band.” She sang lead on their only Top 20 song, a cover of Etta James’s I’d Rather Go Blind. She also released a solo album in 1970.

She would join Fleetwood Mac after marrying bassist John McVie. She saw the band through their first incarnation as a British blues band and was then part of the successful line-up during the subsequent years.

Her songwriting and vocals formed the backbone to the highly personal album Rumours. McVie was one of eight members of the band inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

7 How Christine McVie Grew Up

Born Christine Perfect, she grew up the daughter of a music teacher while her mother was a spiritual person who had many faith-healer friends.

She was born in Bouth, then part of Lancashire and now in Cumbria, and raised in Bearwood, West Midlands. As a child, she studied classical piano and cello, only becoming interested in rock music at 15, when her brother left some Fats Domino sheet music on the family piano. She soon became a lover of blues music.

She spent five years at Birmingham Art College studying for a sculpture degree. She spent much of her time at university busking with her friend Spencer Davis, who also went on to be an iconic in rock music.

6 Who Was Christine McVie Married To?

When Chicken Shack supported the band on tour, Christine initially fancied the original Fleetwood Mac guitarist, Peter Green, but it was John McVie who asked her out.

“It was Peter Green I had a bit of an eye on,” she said during a Desert Island Discs broadcast in 2017. “I started talking to John and fell head over heels with him.”

They married in 1968, and a few months later, she left Chicken Shack with the intention of being a housewife. It didn't last long, as she would officially join Fleetwood Mac in 1970 after playing uncredited on several studio sessions.

The McVie's would divorce after the band finished promoting Rumours in 1978. Christine McVie had embarked on an affair with Fleetwood Mac’s lighting director Curry Grant, which inspired her to write You Make Loving Fun.

While making Tusk, she dated the Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. She wrote the song "Love in Store" about their ill-fated relationship. “I’ve been very unlucky in love,” she said in 2004. “It’s a real drag.”

She went on to marry Portuguese keyboardist Eddy Quintela, who she worked with on her second solo album. They divorced in 2003. She never had children.

5 Christine McVie Helped Revived Fleetwood Mac

The band were a wavering blues band in the early '70s. Christine McVie recorded three albums with the band, before reluctantly agreeing to move to America with her husband and the band’s drummer, Mick Fleetwood. Within a year, they had recruited two American musicians, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Related: Every Major Beef Lindsey Buckingham Has Had With The Rest Of Fleetwood Mac

From the start, Christine McVie realized that the new line-up had found a distinct new sound. “I started playing Say You Love Me,” she recalled, “and when I reached the chorus they started singing with me and fell right into it. I heard this incredible sound – our three voices – and said to myself: ‘Is this me singing?’ I couldn’t believe how great this three-voice harmony was.”

The new line-up released the 1975 album Fleetwood Mac but it was Rumours in 1977 that took them to international stardom. It became one of the biggest selling albums of all time and is often considered one of the best ever made.

4 Fleetwood Mac Were Known For Indulging

Despite their musical harmony, Fleetwod Mac was as known for in-fighting and hedonism as the music. Christine McVie wrote "Songbird" about her love for her fellow band members, despite their collapsing drug- and alcohol-fueled lives.

Related: Inside Harry Styles' Friendship With Fleetwood Mac Frontwoman Stevie Nicks

“The music was all we lived for,” she explained. “That was what tied us together while everything else was falling apart. We were all living in this dream world, doing too many drugs and drinking too much, all busy getting divorced and fighting amongst ourselves.” McVie claimed she "was probably the most restrained of the lot" when it came to drugs.

She admits that she isn't sure if the album would have been made if the band were sober. "I don't know if I would have written Songbird had I not had a couple of toots of cocaine and a half a bottle of champagne. Or written any of the songs that were on that album, because I think we were all pretty loaded."

3 Christine McVie Remembered For Her Songwriting

Christine McVie has been remembered for her songwriting. She has written some of the most beautiful and timeless pop songs that will be remembered for years to come.

Despite her beautiful ballads, they were never oversentimentalized. "That's the trick about writing a love song," she said. "You can't just go, 'I love you, you love me, where are you, I miss you.' There always has to be a bit of a twist."

Related: How Stevie Nicks Influenced The Next Generation Of Singers And Songwriters

She is best known for writing "Songbird," which came to her in just half an hour in the middle of the night. "I literally woke up in the night and the song was there in my head, and I didn't have anything to record it on. I had a piano but no tape recorder or any method of recording it at all," she explained.

"So I had to stay awake all night and keep playing it over, so I didn't forget it. Then I phoned up the studio at nine, and I said, I've got to come in and put this on a two-track."

2 Why Christine McVie Retired From Fleetwood Mac

In 1998, after the success of their live album The Dance, Christine McVie retired to Kent. She said that her fear of flying meant she no longer wanted to be part of the iconic band. She told BBC Radio 4, in 2017, that she started having agoraphobia after leaving the band. It was around this era that her second marriage fell apart, and her father died, prompting her to return to England.

“The moment I landed at Heathrow,” she explained in 2004, “it was as though this massive weight had lifted off me. I never really wanted to leave England in the first place. When we left to try and hack out a career in the States they assured me it would only be for six months. We never came back.”

For the next 16 years, she made only rare public appearances and spent much of her time at her 17th-century house near Canterbury. She spent her days cooking for her extended family and concentrating on her garden and her dogs. “I live a very simple life,” she explained, “but it is the one I chose.”

1 Christine McVie Rejoined The Band In 2013

Christine McVie rediscovered her love of performing at a one-off appearance with the group at London's O2 arena in 2013. She returned to the band a year later.

"It was amazing, like I'd never left. I climbed back on there again and there they were, the same old faces on stage," she told the Guardian.

In 2022, she released a solo compilation album but McVie was adamant that she would never tour again. “I don’t feel physically up for it. I’m in quite bad health. I’ve got a chronic back problem, which debilitates me. I stand up to play the piano, so I don’t know if I could actually physically do it.”

Christine McVie, born July 12, 1943, died November 30, 2022. Her brother, John, and nephew survive her.