Rumours is the eleventh studio album by the British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 4 February 1977, by Warner Bros. Records. Largely recorded in California in 1976, it was produced by the band with Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut. The recording sessions took place as the band members dealt with breakups and struggled with heavy drug use, both of which shaped the album's direction and lyrics.

Recorded with the intention of making "a pop album" that would expand on the commercial success of the 1975 album Fleetwood Mac, Rumours contains a mix of electric and acoustic instrumentation, accented rhythms, guitars, and keyboards, with lyrics concerning personal and often troubled relationships. Its release was postponed by delays in the mixing process. The band promoted the album with a worldwide concert tour.

Rumours became the band's first number-one album on the UK Albums Chart and also topped the US Billboard 200. It received multi-platinum certifications in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As of February 2023, Rumours had sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. All of its four singles—"Go Your Own Way", "Dreams", "Don't Stop", and "You Make Loving Fun"—reached the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100, with "Dreams" reaching number one. In 2004, Rumours was remastered and reissued, with the addition of the track "Silver Springs" and outtakes from the recording sessions.

The album garnered widespread acclaim from critics, who praised its production quality and the vocal harmonies of the band's three singers, and won Album of the Year at the 1978 Grammy Awards. Often considered Fleetwood Mac's magnum opus and one of the greatest albums of all time, Time magazine included it in its exclusive list of the All-TIME 100 Albums, a recognition of the "greatest and most influential musical compilations". It was inducted to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003 and was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2017 by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2020, Rumours was ranked seventh in Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

After guitarist Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac in 1974, drummer Mick Fleetwood, keyboardist and vocalist Christine McVie, and bassist John McVie were joined by guitarist and singer Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks. In July 1975, Fleetwood Mac released its eponymous tenth album to great commercial success, reaching No. 1 in the U.S. in 1976; the record's singles "Over My Head", "Rhiannon" and "Say You Love Me" all reached the Top 20 there.

The band's success belied turmoil amongst its members; after six months of non-stop touring, the McVies divorced, ending eight years of marriage. The couple stopped talking to each other socially and discussed only musical matters. Buckingham and Nicks were having an on/off relationship that led them to fight often. The duo's arguments stopped only when they worked on songs together. Fleetwood faced domestic problems of his own after discovering that his wife Jenny, mother of his two children, was having an affair with his best friend.

Press intrusions into the band members' lives led to inaccurate stories. Christine McVie was reported to have been in the hospital with a serious illness, while Buckingham and Nicks were declared the parents of Fleetwood's daughter Lucy after being photographed with her. The press also wrote about a rumoured return of original Fleetwood Mac members Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, and Jeremy Spencer for a tenth anniversary tour. Despite false reports, the band did not change its lineup, although its members had no time to come to terms with the separations before recording for a new album began. Fleetwood has noted the "tremendous emotional sacrifices" made by everyone just to attend studio work. In early 1976, Fleetwood Mac crafted some new tracks in Florida. Fleetwood and John McVie fired their producer Keith Olsen because he favoured a lower emphasis on the rhythm section. The duo formed a company called Seedy Management to represent the band's interests.

In February 1976, Fleetwood Mac convened at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, with the engineers Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut. The three parties shared production duties, while the more technically adept Caillat was responsible for most of the engineering; he took a leave of absence from Wally Heider Studios in Los Angeles on the premise that Fleetwood Mac would eventually use their facilities. The set-up in Sausalito included several small recording rooms in a large, windowless, wooden building. Most band members complained about the studio and wanted to record at their homes, but Fleetwood did not allow any moves. Christine McVie and Nicks decided to live in two condominiums near the city's harbour, while the male contingent stayed at the studio's lodge in the adjacent hills. Recording occurred in a six-by-nine-metre (20 by 30 ft) room equipped with a 3M 24-track tape machine, a range of high-quality microphones, and an API mixing console with 550A equalisers; the latter were used to control frequency differences or a track's timbre. Although Caillat was impressed with the set-up, he felt that the room lacked ambience because of its "very dead speakers" and large amounts of soundproofing.