Rock legend Stevie Nicks is in New Zealand this week and she couldn’t be happier. She loves this country for all the usual reasons – beautiful scenery, friendly people – but also, Stevie, who’s never been into sports, has become a huge fan of the All Blacks.
She fell for the rugby legends when she was here for the Fleetwood Mac Reunion tour in 2015, which coincided with the last Rugby World Cup.
“It was the haka that got me hooked into it,” she tells Woman’s Day.
“I watched the team doing it and it was the most magical thing I ever saw. So then, for the first time in my life, I stayed up till 4am and watched a sports game to the very end. I had no idea what was going on, but I was glued to it. All those cute guys!”
Stevie even met up back-stage with then-All Black captain Richie McCaw after performing at Auckland’s Mt Smart stadium.
“I got an All Blacks T-shirt,” she tells. “It was great.”
Hanging out with Gemma and Richie McCaw after his team won the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
She’s not exactly looking forward to her landmark birthday in May next year and admits she gets tetchy at friends who want her to celebrate it.
“In my mind, I’m not old,” she asserts.
“If you put out a youthful vibe and don’t sound like an old lady, people fall for it. I always tell my young friends, you think you won’t care any more in your late 60s, but you will. So you need to take care of your hair and skin, and get a little exercise, otherwise you’ll just be an old granny.”
Stevie in 1975
Stevie has always looked after her skin. Her secret is massaging in plenty of pricey creams, never going to bed with her make-up on and not lying in the sun. “I haven’t done that since I was 30 –
not once.”
The iconic rock chick still has the same bohemian look.
“I wear beautiful clothes, even if I’m a little fat for them,” she tells.
“When you get older, your body wants to gain weight. I try to stay at around 66kg and be happy with that. But it’s not easy. I work on it all the time.”
Stevie touring now
Unfortunately, after injuring her knee, Stevie isn’t able to exercise as much as she’d like.
“I tripped over a dog bed, flew through the air and fell with all my weight on it,” she says ruefully.
“So I can’t dance as much onstage or run from one side to the other. That’s been a bummer. I’ve had to learn to go slower.”
Nowadays, she relies on ballet stretches to keep her limber. “If you’re famous, you can’t go to the gym,” she points out. “So for me, it’s all in the stretching.”
Stevie’s life today is a far cry from the wild rock and roll years, when she famously snorted so much cocaine that she developed a hole in her nose. But asked what she regrets, it’s not spending $1 million on drugs, but rather what came later.
After going through rehab, Stevie was urged to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed a drug called Klonopin to help her stay clean.
Plagued by Rumours: Fleetwood Mac fought addictions, break-ups and fallouts.
She tells, “My one regret is that I didn’t walk out of his office. I didn’t need the medication because I was never going back to cocaine. That was the one time inmy life I went against my instincts.”
Stevie ended up developing a severe addiction to the prescription drug, which left her feeling like a zombie.
“It took away eight years of my life,” she reveals.
“I might have got round to having a baby or made lots more albums. It took me a long time to come back from that. And I’m still angry at that psychiatrist. I’ve never got over it. If I saw him in the street, I’d run him over.”
Determined not to have more regrets, Stevie is now trying to find the time to fulfil her long-held dream of creating a mini-series based around the story of a Welsh mythological goddess called Rhiannon, who she turned into a hit song.
“I call it my quest,” she says.
“But since 1978, I’ve been so busy. Every time I make a start, I get a call to say there’s an offer to do shows. It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a husband and kids as balancing everything I want to do is almost impossible.”
Early next year, she’s spending a couple of months in Hawaii and, instead of resting, Stevie’s going to seize the chance to press on with her dream project. “There are so many things I need to do before I die.”
