In April next month, it will be six years since Prince, one of the greatest musicians ever, passed away. He was found dead at his home in Minneapolis, called Paisley Park, when he was 57 years old.
Prince wasn’t just a musician; he was also a songwriter who wrote many songs. He worked with a lot of famous people.
One of those famous people was Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac. She recently talked about her friendship with Prince. She said that Prince once warned her about using drugs.
They worked together in the early 80s, and their friendship grew strong. Stevie, who is now 73 years old, said she felt honored when she found out that Prince was interested in her romantically.
Stevie Nicks, from Fleetwood Mac, talked to Harper’s Bazaar about her friendship with Prince. She said they were just friends, but she thought Prince might have wanted more.
Once, while she was on her way to her honeymoon with her ex-husband, Kim Anderson, they heard Prince’s song “Little Red Corvette” on the radio. Nicks got inspired and started singing along. She asked Kim to stop the car so they could buy a tape recorder to record her singing.
She spent the whole night working on a song, which later became the lead single for her solo album “The Wild Heart.” It became really popular, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.
After she finished her song, she wanted to meet Prince. They met in a studio in Los Angeles, and Prince listened to her song. He liked it and started adding his own music to it on the keyboard.
Then, he hugged her and left.
Stevie Nicks talked about how Prince was so talented that no other band could compare to him. She said this in the book “Rock Lives.”
Even though she really liked Prince, she didn’t want to date him because she valued their musical connection more. She didn’t want to risk breaking up and losing that connection forever.
Prince was also inspired by one of Nicks’ songs, “Edge of Seventeen,” when he wrote his song “When Doves Cry.”
Stevie Nicks, from Fleetwood Mac, shared that she struggled with drugs during the 1980s when she worked with Prince.
She mentioned in an interview with The New Yorker that she was heavily into drugs during those years, but Prince wasn’t. She was surprised to learn later that he ended up using a lot of pain medication because he used to advise her against drugs.
She said Prince would call her sometimes and talk for hours, telling her to be careful with drugs. She agreed with him but continued using them.
After Prince passed away, Nicks felt sad because he died from accidentally overdosing on drugs. She imagines him looking down from heaven, surprised that it happened to him too.
Prince’s concerns about Stevie Nicks’ drug use turned out to be valid, as she ended up going to rehab twice. First, she went to the Betty Ford clinic in 1986 because of her cocaine addiction. Then, in 1993, she went to another hospital because she was taking too much Klonopin, a medicine she was given too much of.
In 1986, Nicks talked to a plastic surgeon about her nose. He told her she had burned a hole the size of a coin in her nose from using cocaine.
She said, “I asked him, ‘What do you think about my nose?’ And he said, ‘Well, I think if you do cocaine again, you could die.’”
After this conversation, Nicks decided to go to the Betty Ford clinic. This decision helped her turn her life around and arguably saved her career and her life.
Stevie Nicks is lucky she had that important conversation that helped her get better. It happened at the perfect time for her.
But it’s sad that Prince couldn’t stop using harmful drugs. Nicks’ story shows how amazing he was as a musician and how kind he was with his talent.
Prince will always be remembered as a music legend, and millions of people miss him.