Mick Fleetwood, Iconic Rock Drummer, Secretly Weds for Fifth Time

Mick Fleetwood, the self-taught drummer who co-founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 and has remained its only constant member across more than 53 years, secretly married Elizabeth Jordan in a beach ceremony in the South Pacific, announcing the news on Instagram on March 28 with the caption: "The south Pacific does its magic!!! A honeymoon with my love Elizabeth... creating moments to be remembered!!"

Fleetwood, 78, and Jordan, 56, had been together for approximately six years before marrying. Musician friend Mike Lawson first signaled the news on Threads, writing that Fleetwood had texted to say he was "marrying his girlfriend of five years, Elizabeth." Photos from the honeymoon showed the couple kissing and enjoying the ocean, with Jordan's face kept out of frame throughout; Fleetwood, wearing a new gold wedding band, covered both their faces with his trademark fedora in one playful shot. The couple made their red carpet debut together at the 65th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February 2023.

That Fleetwood is still drumming, still committing, still building something new at 78 is worth pausing on. He dropped out of school at 15 and moved to London in 1963 to pursue music, passing through The Cheynes, Bo Street Runners, and Shotgun Express alongside a young Rod Stewart before co-founding the band that would carry his name. As Fleetwood has put it: "As a percussion player, I approach my own work in a very emotional, personal way, and so I have to rely on one thing: the essence of feel." He has also said: "I was a guy who knew, through listening to blues music, when to not play, and I became an expert at it. I'm told that what I do as a percussion player is all sort of back-to-front, where the fills are usually not in the obvious places."

That philosophy runs through some of rock's most studied grooves. On "Dreams," producer Ken Caillat made an eight-bar drum loop of Fleetwood's playing to create a "deep hypnotic effect," the restraint doing the work that ornamentation never could. On "Go Your Own Way," Fleetwood goes tom-heavy through the verses before pulling back as the band heads into the chorus, rarely playing the same pattern twice in a row. Both tracks come from Rumours, the 1977 album that won the Grammy for Album of the Year and anchors the catalog of a band that has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.

Jordan, 22 years Fleetwood's junior, is based primarily in Hawaii, where she runs a property development business with operations extending to California and New York. She also serves as executive director of the Mick Fleetwood Foundation, launched in 2023 to support music education programs in Hawaiian schools.

This is Fleetwood's fifth marriage but only his fourth spouse: he married model Jenny Boyd, younger sister of Pattie Boyd, first in 1970 and again during an Irish tour in 1977, before permanently separating in 1978. His 1988 wedding to Sara Recor was attended by George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, and Chubby Checker; that marriage ended in 1995. A subsequent marriage to Lynn Frankel produced twin daughters Ruby and Tessa, now 24, before their divorce was finalized in 2015. In a 2024 Mojo magazine interview, Fleetwood said: "It's been a strange time for me," a reflection shaped in part by the 2022 death of bandmate Christine McVie.

The fedora over two faces at the water's edge, the gold ring, the deliberate restraint of keeping Jordan out of frame: all of it lands like one of his drum parts. No more than is needed, and every beat in service of the song.