On November 30, 2022, it was announced that Christine McVie died “following a short illness.” Her family posted on Instagram, “On behalf of Christine McVie’s family, it is with a heavy heart we are informing you of Christine’s death. She passed away peacefully at the hospital this morning.” The statement went on to ask fans to respect the family’s privacy and remember McVie as the “revered musician who was loved, universally.”
McVie joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970, alongside her then-husband John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. A few years later, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group and Fleetwood Mac would go on to have decades of success. Over the years, McVie wrote many hits for the band, most notably, “Songbird.” On how she came up with the song, she told The Guardian, “That was a strange little baby, that one. I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano … and sang it with no tape recorder.”
As reported by The Blast, Christine McVie was diagnosed with “metastatic malignancy of unknown primary origin” prior to her death. The aggressive form of cancer had spread through her body and doctors were unable to pinpoint the original source. The cancer caused McVie to have an “ischaemic stroke,” which was the primary cause of her death, as well as a bilateral renal infarction. According to The Blast, an ischaemic stroke is “a blood clot [that] blocks or narrows an artery leading to the brain. A blood clot often forms in arteries damaged by the buildup of plaques (atherosclerosis).”