14 Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Stevie Nicks's Unique Life

After Fleetwood Mac ascended to the heights of rock and roll stardom, Stevie Nicks fell into the trap that snares countless musicians. In her most hedonistic days, Nicks says she bought $1 million worth of cocaine, and that all of that snorting burned a hole the size of a dime in her nose. But that didn't deter her from getting high.

The rumor is that since she couldn't snort any more coke, she had an assistant blow it into her rock and roll backside. Looking back on this time in her life, Nicks said, “There was no way to get off the white horse and I didn't want to.” She went on to say in her biography that she never got the hole fixed because she was afraid that it would change her voice, and that it’s constantly deteriorating and “so painful.”

The biggest take away from Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours is that Stevie Nicks can make a lot of knee-jerk decisions based on things she believes to be signs from somewhere else. After her best friend and vocal coach, Robyn Anderson, passed away from terminal cancer in in 1982, Nicks made one of the craziest decisions that someone can make: She married Kim Anders, Robyn’s widowed husband. Stevie’s reasoning behind the marriage has a valiant logic to it, but to everyone outside of her brain it was a terrible idea.

Before she passed away, Anderson had given birth to a premature baby, and Nicks (the baby’s godmother) decided that the best thing she could do to help take care of her godson would be to marry the father and form a family unity.

According to Nicks, she told Kim, “I don’t know, I guess we should just get married.” Perhaps the only positive thing that came out of this crazy decision was one of the greatest songs of all time, “Stand Back,” written after the wedding on the couple’s drive to Santa Barbara.

In the late '80s Nicks checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm Springs and eventually choose to give up coke for good. Though she was in recovery, Nicks still had the occasional drink and her friends and family worried, pressing her to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist prescribed her a tranquilizer called Klonopin to calm her nerves, and over the years he increased her dosage.

The rock star became addicted to the tranquilizer and lost a lot energy. Nicks stropped writing and stopped going out and fans began to notice her apathy. By 1993, Nicks was fed up and requested that her assistant, Glenn, take her medication for her so she could see if her lethargy the past 5 years could be attributed to the Klonopin. By the end of the day, she says Glenn was nearly hallucinating, and Nicks checked herself into a clinic where she took 47 days to detox and begin her recovery. 

On New Year’s Eve, 1974, Bob Welch, longtime guitarist of Fleetwood Mac, decided to quit the band, citing the pressure of their recent, intense lawsuit. In response, Mick Fleetwood put in a call to Keith Olsen, co-producer of the second Buckingham Nicks album.

Mick instructed Olsen to ask Buckingham to join the band, but Olsen insisted that Buckingham came in tandem with Stevie Nicks. Mick Fleetwood, desperate to keep his band together, told Olsen that he didn't care, he just needed some bodies in his band immediately to record an album.

So, instead of going to a New Year’s Eve party with his date, Keith Olsen spent the evening convincing Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac.

Nicks alleges Prince sent her a demo for "Purple Rain" after she proposed a collaboration between the two stars. When Nicks wrote her solo hit, "Stand Back," she made sure Prince was okay with its relationship to his "Little Red Corvette." Not only was he on board, but he showed up to Nicks's studio and recorded uncredited synth work on the track. Nicks was so pleased she asked if Prince would like to work with her again, and he responded by sending her a demo for what became "Purple Rain." 

Though Nicks turned down the collaboration saying the song was "too much" for her, she has no regrets. She recalls telling him, "Prince, I've listened to this a hundred times but I wouldn't know where to start. It's a movie, it's epic." 

Prince and Nicks maintained their friendship and she remembers riding alongside him in his purple camaro going 100 MPH on the freeway after a Fleetwood Mac show. Nicks assured fans that losing Prince in 2016 broke her heart. 

Once Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in the '70s and the band released their self-titled debut, she was essentially given a ticket to ride forever. Even after the band took a break in 1982, Nicks continued on with her solo career... and continued with her heavy drug use. 

After the death of her best friend and watching several relationships dissolve, she sunk even more into a drug haze that almost killed her. When the band reconvened to record Tango in the Night, Nicks was suffering from nosebleeds, falls, and blackouts. She finally visited a doctor who told her that she was dangerously close to suffering from a brain hemorrhage.

Nicks says that he told her that the hemorrhage could occur “the next time you do cocaine. It won’t be pretty.” Of course, she didn't stop. Instead she worked with Fleetwood Mac for three weeks before leaving for an Australian tour, and, again, continued her heavy drug use.