EXCLUSIVE: Mick Fleetwood Claims He Lost 2 Years of Memories After His Cocaine Habit Got 'Out of Hand' in the 1970s
Mick Fleetwood co-founded Fleetwood Mac.
June 22 2026, Updated 2:44 p.m. ET
Mick Fleetwood admitted that he used to do so much cocaine in the 1970s that it affected his memory in a big way.
Ahead of his 79th birthday on June 24, RadarOnline.com revisits the Fleetwood Mac co-founder's shocking drug binges that became so intense, he forgot an entire piece of his life.
'I Can't Even Remember What I Did'
Mick Fleetwood said his cocaine habit got so bad that he remembered 'not working for two years.'
"I remember not working for two years," he added. "I can’t even remember what I did."
Despite his confession, he clarified the band was, at the least, still functional at the time.
"I’m not minimalizing the fact that we were definitely partaking in that lifestyle. But these weren’t a bunch of people crawling along the floor with green froth coming out of their mouths," he explained. "We were working, you know?"
Million Spent in Cocaine
Mick Fleetwood reportedly took millions of dollars worth of cocaine.
Stories of Fleetwood's considerable cocaine habit didn't stop there.
The musician, now 78, reportedly once determined that he and one of the group's engineers had done enough of the drug that if they laid it all out on the group, it would stretch "seven miles long."
And it didn't come cheap either. Fleetwood allegedly did more than $60million worth of cocaine over the years, per New York Post.
Fleetwood also dubbed bandmate Stevie Nicks as a "close second" to his cocaine use.
Fleetwood Mac's Bizarre 'Ritual'
Mick Fleetwood suggested Stevie Nicks was a 'close second' to his cocaine use.
Fleetwood Mac reportedly also had a bizarre cocaine-based "ritual."
"The engineers and band members all started humming a tune – it changed over the years – which would serve as a siren’s call for cocaine, specifically the cocaine I was invariably holding," Fleetwood wrote in his 2014 memoir, Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac.
"The most memorable song was Vangelis’ theme to Chariots of Fire," he shared.
"As if in a trance, I would drop what I was doing and in slow-motion, beckon them over," he recalled, noting that he'd make them "run in slow motion" and "get on their knees," before giving them the drugs.
In 2021, he expanded on their drug use when he told Classic Rock, "There's no doubt we were well equipped with the marching powder. That's a well-worn fairy tale that gets more like a war story, that gets more and more aggrandized."
Mick Fleetwood's Regrets
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Fleetwood Mac was plagued with interpersonal issues and drama.
Despite their wild days and incredible fame over the decades, Fleetwood admitted that he regretted sharing so much of the group's personal lives with the public.
"For a while within Fleetwood Mac there were romances and that lifestyle … and the other stuff got forgotten – and we really asked for that trouble," he said in an interview with The Sun. "We were too open about who we were and what we were doing – probably very naive."
"All anyone ever asked about was, ‘Who is sleeping with who?’ or ‘Who is angry with who?’ And you start to feel it’s a shame," he continued. "Now they intelligently talk about what we did musically. That’s important to us. We never wanted to make fools of ourselves too many times."
