The Beach Boys Singer a Fleetwood Mac Legend Lovingly Called a 'Mess'

Fleetwood Mac legend Christine McVie was conflicted over her feelings for her former Beach Boys beau.

McVie revisited her memories of dating Dennis Wilson on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs. The song she chose was recorded for the band’s 23rd LP, L.A. (Light Album).

The Fleetwood Mac keyboardist picked “Angel Come Home.” Wilson was the lead vocalist on the melancholy tune.

In the clip, McVie lovingly called her former boyfriend a “mess. But he was charismatic, charming, and really handsome.”

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She continued, “He swept me off my feet big time, and we had a very rollercoaster affair for a couple of years. I just adored him.”

Additionally, in an interview with BBC Radio 2’s The Tracks of My Years, she added the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” to her list of favorite songs after hearing it being sung by Carl Wilson. “Many years ago, I was going out with Dennis Wilson for a couple of years or so,” McVie explained.

“I went on the road with him. I just adored Carl [Wilson]. I thought he was the most wonderful man, he had the sweetest voice in the world, he sounded like an angel, and that was my favorite song.” 

McVie and Wilson were romantically involved during the time Fleetwood Mac worked on 1979’s Tusk. She told Rolling Stone, “I tend to go for these half-little-boy characters. When Dennis was like that, he was just adorable. He was really a sensitive, sweet man.”

After they split, the two didn’t see one another for several years. Then McVie learned the tragic news that Wilson had died.

“My secretary called me up at eight in the morning. I knew something was wrong. She said, ‘Dennis drowned today.’ And my first reaction was to say, ‘My God, is he all right?’ I still really can’t believe it. He just seemed indestructible,” McVie revealed.

Dennis Wilson was 39 when he died from drowning at Marina del Rey in December 1983. Christine McVie died of a stroke and Metastasized Cancer on November 30, 2022, at the age of 79.