Fame has proved to be a double-edged sword for Stevie Nicks, bringing with it not just fortune
and recognition, but also unwanted scrutiny of her appearance, tensions with bandmates,
and a serious coke addiction. Here's the untold truth of Stevie Nicks.
As a child, Stevie Nicks inherited her love of music from her grandfather,
who was an aspiring country singer. By 4, she was performing with him,
and a sixth-grade talent show cemented her dream of becoming a professional entertainer.
When Nicks was a teenager, her family moved to California. One night in 1966, the high school
senior went to a religious youth group meeting, where she was introduced to Lindsay Buckingham.
The two played the Mamas and Papas hit "California Dreamin'" together,
and Nicks later said she was, quote, "captivated" immediately.
Still, they wouldn't see each other again until two years later when Buckingham
called her out of the blue to ask if she wanted to join a San Francisco folk group
called Fritz. The band became quite successful locally, opening for Jimi Hendrix, CCR, Santana,
Janis Joplin, and Grace Slick with Jefferson Airplane.
Despite this, Fritz broke up in 1971. But by then, Nicks and Buckingham had become a couple,
and they began to make their own music under the moniker Buckingham Nicks.
Shortly after the demise of Fritz, Buckingham Nicks had written enough material to record
an album. They were signed to Polydor, but their self-titled debut was a flop
and the label dropped them. Undeterred, they continued to work on new songs,
including future Fleetwood Mac hits "Monday Morning," "Rhiannon," and "Landslide."
Stevie Nicks was also working as a cleaner and a waitress to support the couple financially.
She enjoyed the waitressing job, working lunches so she could go home and write music with Lindsey
Buckingham in the evenings. But money was tight. In October 1974, she promised her father she
would find a new career if they hadn't gotten anywhere with their music within three months.
On New Year's Eve, Fleetwood Mac called Buckingham and invited him to join them
on guitar. Buckingham refused to come without Nicks. After the band met, singer Christine
McVie was allowed the final say over adding another woman to the ensemble. Fortunately,
she said yes. They were in the band, and just in time.
"The motivation stemmed out of a need to work."
In 1975, Fleetwood Mac released the self-titled album that scored them their first big break.
Suddenly, Nicks found herself subject to comments about her looks. In response,
the following year, she got silicone breast implants, later explaining,
"I had always thought my hips were too big and that I had no chest."
Nicks told People Magazine that she nearly quit singing because she was
tired of being fat-shamed by the media. In 1994,
she had the implants removed after realizing they were causing health issues. She said,
"It turned out they were totally broken."
Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham's romantic relationship ended in 1976
while the new line-up was working on “Rumours” — their second album together.
Nicks told the Oprah Winfrey Network that they, quote, "had a very bad fight" and she called
the relationship off. They both decided to stay in the band, but it wasn't easy.
At a photoshoot for the cover of Rolling Stone, sparks flew unexpectedly between Nicks and
drummer Mick Fleetwood, who was in the process of getting a divorce. It eventually led to an affair,
though Nicks was dating Don Henley of the Eagles at the time.
Nicks later blamed heavy cocaine use for the affair, saying that it,
"was a doomed thing [that] caused a lot of pain."
Looking back on it, though, Fleetwood had a slightly more optimistic take. He told Salon,
"Me and Stevie [...] had a moment in time when [...] we were in love.
It was never to be that it could grow and be allowed to breathe in the open."
By 1979, Stevie Nicks was still in a relationship with Don Henley of the Eagles,
and Fleetwood Mac were working on their follow-up to "Rumours" — "Tusk" — which
came out that October. Sometime that year, Nicks discovered she was pregnant and had an abortion.
Nicks stands by her choice and other people's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy.
She told The Guardian that her heavy drug use would have created a bad environment for a child
and that she would have been forced to quit the band,
which she believed was making music that would help a lot of people. She told ABC Downtown,
"My particular mission maybe wasn't to be a mom and a wife;
maybe my particular mission was to write songs to make moms and wives feel better."
Although Fleetwood Mac had overcome broken hearts and deep-seated hurt to make
"Rumours," it was "Tusk" that temporarily split up the band.
Though it sold four million copies, the album was still considered a commercial flop,
and the year-long world tour to support it only furthered cocaine-fueled tensions.
During the recording sessions for "Tusk," Nicks had begun working
on some new songs — songs she decided to finish without the rest of Fleetwood Mac.
She co-founded independent record label Modern Records to put out her music,
and on July 27, 1981, her debut solo album, "Bella Donna," was released. It hit number one
in the Billboard albums chart and stayed in the Top 200 for almost three years.
Nicks was proud, but she later reflected that her success caused tension with many
of the men in her life. When she gave Lindsey Buckingham a copy,
he left it on the floor of the studio. Nicks told The Guardian,
"They were full-on jealous [...] all of them. They hated that kind of confidence in a woman."
She said that shortly after the album came out, even her father told her
she would never find a man who would marry such a successful woman. Still,
there are plenty of people who appreciated Nicks' music: by 2021 she had released
eight solo studio albums and two live albums, selling over 30 million copies.
Stevie Nicks never married either of her two most famous boyfriends,
Lindsey Buckingham and Don Henley. But she did have a brief marriage,
which started and ended in 1983 and was born from a tragedy in her personal life.
Around 1981, Nicks' best friend Robin Snyder was diagnosed with leukemia.
She briefly went into remission and got pregnant:
the father was her husband Kim Anderson. Unfortunately, the cancer returned.
Nicks told the Oprah Winfrey Network that Snyder chose not to get further treatment because she
knew she was going to die, and she didn't want to take any medication that could harm her baby.
In 1982, two days after Snyder and Anderson's son Matthew was born, Snyder died.
Nicks told The Oprah Winfrey Network,
"I was [...] completely and utterly grief-stricken. I
had lost the best friend I had ever had."
Believing that the best way she could serve Snyder was by looking after her husband and baby, in
January 1983, Nicks convinced Anderson that they should get married. She later told The Guardian,
“it was a completely ridiculous thing."
Three months later, she realized they had made a mistake, and they divorced.
Nicks believes Snyder's spirit visited her to tell her to end the marriage, saying,
"Robin would not have wanted me to be married to a guy I didn't love."
No, it's not just another rock 'n' roll urban legend.
In her biography, "Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours,"
Zoë Howe confirmed that Stevie Nicks' prodigious cocaine use really did cause her to develop
a dime-sized hole in her nasal septum — the piece of cartilage that separates the nostrils.
Nicks told the Oprah Winfrey Network that she became "more aware of cocaine" in 1976.
Overuse made her too hyped up, so she tried to counter it with alcohol use,
leading to a downward spiral of addiction. She later estimated
that she spent millions of dollars on drugs, telling The Telegraph,
"All of us were drug addicts, but there was a point where I was the worst."
In 1986, Stevie Nicks sought treatment for cocaine addiction at the famous
Betty Ford Center rehab clinic in Palm Springs, California. After 30 days, she emerged drug-free.
It didn't last, though: a psychiatrist prescribed her a tranquilizer called Klonopin,
or Clonazepam to help with her alcohol addiction, and she became dependent on the drug.
She also was tranquilized to the point where she lost her ambition completely.
She later told The Guardian,
"[Klonopin] took away all my wonderful drama, my tempestuousness,
my compassion, my empathy –- all those things that drove me to my piano."
By 1993, she had also developed tremors in her hands and finally went to rehab again.
This time it took 47 days — an experience which she told Rolling Stone was, quote,
"way more horrific than 30 days to get off coke." She said,
"They stole my forties. It was eight completely wasted years of my life."
Stevie Nicks' penchant for all-black outfits, flowing sleeves, fairy tales, Halloween,
burning candles, and a song about a Welsh goddess named Rhiannon
have seen her labeled a witchy woman. And this is not entirely wrong.
One of Nicks' magical qualities is her belief that she can connect with the spirits of people
she's loved and lost. For example, Nicks told The Guardian that shortly after her mom died in 2012,
she felt her presence while standing in the kitchen. Moreover, she heard her mom tell
her to stop drinking so much Gatorade because it was giving her acid reflux!
Being a rock star, Nicks has access to some celebrity spirits,
whom she turns to when she needs musical assistance.
She told Variety that she still talks to her departed friends Prince and Tom Petty, saying,
"I call in all my spirits, and I say, 'Tom, stand behind me. Prince, stand with me.'"
Nicks' witchy reputation is so deeply embedded in pop culture
that it became a plot in "American Horror Story.” In three episodes of the show,
she graciously played herself, but as a full-on White Witch.
Playing in a band with her ex proved to be challenging for Stevie Nicks.
She and Lindsey Buckingham argued over the music, and she felt he was jealous of her solo success.
Things allegedly escalated to physical violence at a band meeting in 1987 when Buckingham told
the others he was quitting, just before a huge tour. Nicks said that she ran at him in a rage,
at which point Buckingham chased her into the street and threw her up against a car. Nicks said,
"I thought he was going to kill me."
Buckingham left the band, and in 1990, Nicks did too. They both returned in 1996, but it wouldn't
last; in 2018, it was abruptly announced that Buckingham would not be rejoining Fleetwood Mac
for their upcoming tour. Buckingham later told Rolling Stone that Nicks had him
kicked off the tour over a perceived insult, telling the others it was either her or him.
"None of it makes sense to me, you know. Fleetwood Mac, the five of us together,
is, uh, in my mind is a very sacred thing."
Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, during a brief period where
the band's classic lineup had reunited. Then, in 2019, Nicks made history when she became the
first woman inducted into the Hall of Fame twice, this time for her solo career. By then, 23 men had
already achieved this impressive feat, including all four Beatles, Dave Grohl, and Jimmy Page.
At her second induction, Nicks performed alongside her, quote,
"very good friend" Harry Styles. She told Variety,
"The only people that think it isn't a big deal are the people who don't get in."
Nicks got some much-needed female company on the list in 2021
as Tina Turner and Carole King were also both inducted for the second time.
Still rocking into her 70s, in 2017,
Stevie Nicks told Rolling Stone that she has no plans to ever retire.
However, she has had to slow down a little, thanks to some health issues and a global pandemic.
In 2019 — the night after performing at her second Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction — Nicks
was admitted to an intensive care unit in a Philadelphia hospital. She later told
Variety she had suffered from low blood oxygen caused by double pneumonia, among other things.
Nicks recovered, but her lungs are still compromised. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in
2020, she was particularly wary. Her main concern was her voice. She told The Guardian that her mom
had been on a ventilator, which left her voice hoarse. In 2021, after recovering from a fractured
knee cap, Nicks canceled five upcoming tour dates due to COVID fears. She wrote on Twitter,
"While I'm vaccinated, at my age, I am still being extremely cautious."
Here's hoping we have a chance to see her sing again soon!
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