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This profile originally ran on June 9, 2013.
Were revisiting it now in honor of Stevie Nickssinduction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Look to the shawls; let them show you the way.
There may also be a wind machine, or perhaps youre just imagining it.
This was all to be expected, and somehow it still thrills.
Twirling in the outstretched arms of Stevie Nicks, those shawls have magic in them.
No one rocks a shawl like Stevie Nicks.
Everywhere in the arena were homages to Stevie: top hats, feathers, flowing black fabric.
And, of course, shawls.
Or is it vice-versa?
), and Go Your Own Way and Never Going Back Again (by Lindsey, and meaner).
Has she just had enough of his ego?
This is the dream.
So everybody, were so glad youre here.
The party starts now!
An earlier cut of the movie with muddled sound had left her displeased when shed seen it in Austin.
Oh, its so much better, she says now.
(We kept a photo of Bella and Edward on the soundboard when we recorded, she said.)
Her hair is in a messy topknot, and shes peering down saucerlike super-prescription rose-colored glasses.
Nicks turns around, blows me a long, sorrowful kiss, and then returns to her slumping.
We look to our stars for otherworldliness and operatic scale, which Nicks delivers.
Im going to go to the bathroom, she says.
Go anywhere you want.
I miss half a story about how she wound up spontaneously touring with Tom Petty.
And I said, Have you promised her diamonds or something?
Buy her a fucking Porsche.
Not on a vacation, not with Fleetwood Mac, not with friends.
And thats, like, a career-killer right there.
And how shed been reluctant to do another album at all because the music business is dead.
Or she writes alone at the piano (she cant read music and has never had lessons).
They wore Dickensian costumes and rented owls and a white horse to prance around her backyard.
One rarely findsa role model who snorted so much cocaine she tore a permanent hole in her nose.
She hasnt airbrushed her life at all, Sischy says.
Stevie Nicks is not about repentance; I always thought she was about consciousness.
She needs to stop doing drugs and get a grip.)
But Im completely befuddled its still going on.
Theyre gonna hate me, Nicks says of her bandmates.
Im going to be crucified.
asks Nicks, jumping back and throwing her shawl protectively across her face.
No tongue, promises Rosenberg.
Im not touching you.
No, were not gonna hold hands.
Were gonna love from a distance.
If I get sick again, I am, like, a dead woman.
Just … back away.
He spots her, scowls, and taps his wrist.
Everyone takes a nervous breath.
Then he smiles, and everyone laughs.
Were getting along, Nicks tells me, tentatively.
Its been a long, long, long, long, long, long time.
And it really is really lovely.
Its a good idea to get out of the spotlight and let people miss you.
Its not near as fun without her buddy there, Nicks tells me.
Because it was girl power, you know?
Shes our queen bee, Fleetwood says of Nicks, and she needs protecting.
I dont want to stand too close.
Stevie fired back, teasingly: I dont know.
I have stood next to you playing guitar for how many years?
Buckingham: Youre stalking me.
Nicks: Im stalking you on this one.
Buckingham: All I can do is angle toward you.
I gotta look at the neck.
Buckingham: I just need to eye the neck of the guitar and then look over at your neck.
Go from neck to neck.
Nicks: My wrinkly neck.
Buckingham: Oh, stop it.
Theyre still sending messages to each other, says Fleetwood.
They are absolutely on a journey, and they have absolutely not given up.
And its nothing to do with being in love.
Stevie Nicks livesin the bow of a ship in the sky.
I went, Dont even move!
Nicks says, reenacting the moment with a crouch and a whisper.
She got her camera and took his picture.
And I felt like something happened, like a connection was made, she says.
He was never coming back.
That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
She takes me out onto that balcony.
Not Paris, not London, not Rome.
Another window looks back into the hills.
I can wave at my friends!
She should be a hotel critic.
Ive been warning all you computer people that one day the whole citys going to go down.
For me itll just be like, Its all dark!
All of you guys will be like, Oh, no!
She hasnt had a drivers license since 1978 (Where would I go by myself?)
and is only reachable by phone through landline or Johnston.
I was with them once when Johnstons cell phone rang; Nicks harmonized with the ringtone.
I dont think Ill ever sell this place, Nicks says.
Im bored at the big house.
I feel lonely at the big house.
I feel depressed at the big house.
Im kind of going like, Now I kind of wish I had a boyfriend!
at the big house.
I come over here and I walk through those doors and I feel like an international pop star.
There are Buddhas everywhere.
Shes not a believer, she says, but I probably will be someday.
(Nicks often talks for Sulamith in a high-pitched squeal.)
Beds, Nicks laments, are a constant bane; shes bought ten in the past year.
This is another new bed, and its going back.
Nicks is a night owl.
(You ever wonder why her skin looks so good?
She never goes out in the sun; shes a vampire.)
And, she says, dont judge her for all the white fur everywhere; its mostly rabbit.
Listen, theres an overpopulation of rabbits.
Theres so many rabbits in Phoenix that theyre, like, gonna move the people out.
Im like a hoarder, Nicks says.
She keeps nearly everything that people give herlike that silk poncho shell never wear from the young designer.
I feel bad, you know?
Its like a piece of love.
You have no idea.
I have storage units full of …
I could outfit everybody in Los Angeles in these things.
My own trip to see Stevie in Los Angeles had begun in a pretty fragile state.
I was busy, she said, having a baby.
How many carrots can you eat?!
she asks, cackling.
I eat one yogurt every single night right before I go to bed.
Its my, like, special time.
There wasnt any ecstasy around when we were doing drugs, which Im really happy about, she says.
But Im not going to take a pain pill if I dont need it, ever.
Im past that, you know.
Im 65 years old.
And I dont drink.
I quit smoking cigarettes.
I dont do any recreational drugs.
And Im really pretty happy.
When I ask about regrets, she only mentions the eight years on Klonopin.
But the fact is that I dont know what would have happened in that eight years.
Maybe I would have met somebody.
Maybe I would have had a baby.
So that is something that was really stolen from me.
Imagine, she says, being single and Stevie Nicks.
Like, Im gonna go to a bar?
I mean, where am I gonna meet somebody?
She and Sheryl Crow actually make up skits imagining the videos theyd record for a matchmaking service.
We who are famous, we laugh, says Nicks, performing one for me: Hi!
And as old as 68.
When we were really young, it was a lot easier.
Because we were crazy.
Im not crazy now.
I had enough fun and enough relationships to last me for the rest of my life, really.
But its a very elusive thing.
Its this free-spirit thing: Dont let people push you into a box that you dont like.
And shes right, Carlton says.
And now its a little bit different because of women like Stevie.
And I think,God, Im just so grateful to her.Shes a total badass.
Carlton reads one aloud: He must have a good job.
He must be happy and satisfied with his own life.
Thats my favorite one.
Thank you, Stevie!
Friends, including Fleetwood, have worried about Nickss loneliness.
Most women would not be happy being me, Nicks says.
People say, But youre alone.
But I dont feel alone.
I feel very un-alone.
I feel very sparkly and excited about everything.
I know women who are going, like, I dont want to grow old alone.
And Im like, See, that doesnt scare me.
Because Ill never be alone.
Ill always be surrounded by people.
Im like the crystal ball and these are all the rings of Saturn around me.
You dont want to have one?
You dont want to be married?
And youre like, Well, no, I dont, actually.
And they find a lot of reasons why youre not fine.
But it just seems to be coming back.
Being able to take care of myself is something that my mom really instilled in me, she says.
I can remember her always saying, If nothing else, I will teach you to be independent.
But I want more; the bottom is still nowhere in sight.
Mama, she says softly.
My mother taught me that.
All right, honey.
She shuts the door.
*This article originally appeared in the June 17, 2013 issue ofNew York Magazine.
