When her best
friend Robin died leaving a baby son, Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks
ignored the advice of family and friends and married Robin's
grieving partner. But I only led to further heartbreak.
Alan Jackson
reports
She seems to
have everything a woman could want ' fame, beauty, wealth and a
staggeringly successful career. Stevie Nicks is both a highly
successful solo artist and member of the supergroup Fleetwood Mac,
who breeze into Britain next week to play to stadium crowds in
London and Manchester.
Yet the title of
the band's latest chart-topping album, Behind The Mask, is oddly
appropriate to 42-year-old Stevie. For her public success hides the
private heart-break of a woman who has coped with cocaine addiction,
a string of broken relationships and even a disastrous marriage to
her best friend's husband.
And it wasn't
fame and fortune that soured the 'American Dream'. She and handsome
musician boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham became one of rock's most
celebrated couples in the 70s. Yet the cracks in their relationship
were evident long before super-stardom came their way.
Lindsey left
Fleetwood Mac three years ago and Stevie now says, 'He and I were
about as compatible as a boa constrictor and a rat. But we've had
our final words. We will never be able to work together again '
we'll ever even speak again, which is very sad. In any relationship
you come down to a point where you say things that you can never
take back, and we've said them. It breaks my heart.'
Despite their
love for each other, she and Lindsey were in daily conflict too long
before being chosen from hundreds of hopefuls to join the band.
'Rich and famous or starving and poor, we went through the same
problems,' she sighs. 'He always wanted me to himself, but someone
had to go out and earn some money. All he wanted to do was play his
music.
'When I came
home I'd always get a slight cold shoulder. He wouldn't quite trust
me about where I'd been or what I'd been doing. When we broke up,
two years after joining Fleetwood Mac, it was like living a
nightmare.'
For Lindsey,
excelling at his music was a continual struggle. But it came easy
for Stevie. And as her vocals and songwriting began to play an
ever-increasing part in the band's success, a wedge was driven
between them.
'He felt I
should have to work much harder at it,' she says, 'I tried asking,
'Lindsey, how can I change?' But everything about me seemed to bug
him. My laughter, the way I could deal with a lot of difficult
things, all made him cringe. So I changed when I was around him. I
became mouse-like and would never dare offer a suggestion.'
Their break-up
came as fellow band members Christine and John McVie were also
splitting up, but they all remained committed to holding Fleetwood
Mac together. The pressure to maintain the band's phenomenal level
of success while working through their personal problems weighed
heavy on everyone, but for Stevie there was the added pressure
involved in taking the first tentative steps of her own parallel
solo career. Also, unbeknown to her, the most heart-breaking and
bizarre chapter of her life was about to begin.
It started when
she was told that her childhood girlfriend Robin was dying of
leukaemia. Unusually for someone with the disease, Robin had still
managed to become pregnant by her husband Kim and, knowing how
slight her chances of conceiving had been, she refused all medical
treatment during her confinement. Instead she reconciled herself to
the fact that she would have to sacrifice any hope of life in order
to give birth.
Having spent
many painful hours at Robin's bedside, this resolve led Stevie to
make one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
Three days after
giving birth to son Matthew, a tiny, premature baby weighing just 1' lb, Robin died. Distraught, Stevie made a vow to honour the memory
of her best friend by marrying Kim and bringing up their son as her
son.
'I went crazy '
absolutely crazy when Robin died. The only thing I could think of to
do was try to take the load off Kim by marrying him and helping
raise their son.
'I think in her
heart Robin knew I would go after Kim,' Stevie continues. 'I had
known her for 20 years and him for five, and I felt this baby
belonged to me almost as much as it did to them.'
Friends and
family found themselves unable to share Stevie and Kim's logic... 'A
lot of people refused to come to my wedding ' they thought I'd lost
my mind, which I obviously had at the time.'
In the early
days of the marriage, their shared emotions and the demands of
providing round-the-clock care for Matthew united the couple. But as
time went on, Stevie became more and more convinced of the mistake
she'd made. At times she even doubted that Kim could distinguish
between herself and Robin.
'Having been
friends from the ages of 14 to 35 we talked the same and had similar
mannerisms ' so much so that, in a dim light, it was hard to tell us
apart.'
The relationship
quickly deteriorated. Kim began to keep Stevie away from Matthew,
and Stevie realised she'd married someone she didn't even know.
Uncertain of
what to do next she walked into the nursery one day to check on
Matthew. 'I had got used to going in and finding the cradle rocking
without anyone being there and I always knew that it was Robin,' she
says/ ' But on this occasion it wasn't rocking, nor the next day
either, and that was when I realised she had finally left.
'Somehow, I knew
she was telling me, 'You'd better get out of this right now. Kim
will take good care of Matthew, but this is not what God meant for
you, Stevie.''
Stevie hasn't
seen either Kim or Matthew since their divorce but prays for the
opportunity to see Matthew once more when he is a bit older. 'I hope
he'll come to me and I'll be able to hand him things that were his
mother's and say, 'This was her ' look how wonderful she was.''
The trauma of
her broken marriage coincided with spectacular solo success for
Stevie in America. When other members of Fleetwood Mac came off tour
to enjoy the rewards of their multi-platinum record sales, she would
be thrown into another round of recording, promoting and touring.
Like some other
high achievers in the 80s, Stevie found herself depending on drugs
to see her through her busy schedule. 'Eventually, I was working so
hard that I lost the belief that I could carry on without them,' she
says.
It was then, in
1986, that she checked herself into the Betty Ford Clinic in Palm
Springs. 'Other people can advise you to do it, but you're the one
who has to make the decision. You have to walk through those doors
alone.'
Happily for
Stevie, the gruelling schedule of therapy, group discussions and
manual work cured her, and she has gone on to reach new heights in
her career. But the woman who has become one of the legends of rock
knows that the financial rewards of her success can never buy her
the family she would so dearly love.
'I've probably
got about two years left in which I could have a baby, but my
diary's booked solid,' she says sadly. 'Then again, if it were to
happen with somebody I cared about, everything else would take a
back seat.'
Being a night
owl and workaholic doesn't help. 'I love being awake at night when
there's nobody around. It's the only time I ever feel really free.
So being involved in my life is difficult for any man, unless he
understands that the way I am isn't a personal thing against him '
I'm just busy.
'I'll say,
'Okay, I'm going to sleep with you for 20 minutes until you go to
sleep, and then I'm going to get up again. If you can live with
that, then I can live with you!'
At that, Stevie
Nicks gives a deep, throaty laugh. She's a woman who has lived ' and
loved ' so much, and has no time for regrets. 'I wouldn't change a
minute of my life. I've been to the very bottom and the very top
and, if nothing else, I've ended up with a well-rounded
personality!'
thanks to trackaghost for transcribing this
article