Stevie Nicks is a singer and songwriter best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist. She has won countless awards and was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. She is also widely considered a gay icon.
Here are six reasons why the “Rhiannon” singer, who identifies as straight, is a pillar of the LGBTQ community.
Although Nicks has made it clear that she is not gay, she has also spoken out in support of the LGBTQ community.
In a Sept. 2014 interview with Out Magazine, Nicks explained she felt about her gay fans. “I can’t say that I’m so glad that gay people like my music, because I have never looked at gay people as different from any other people,” she said. “We are all one consciousness. The fact that anybody loves my music makes me feel very good, because this is what I do.”
She went on to describe why her friends, including her gay friends, are so important to her. “I didn’t get married; I don’t have kids. I have lots of godchildren, but it is just me and my dogs,” Nicks said. “And then I have my straight friends and I have my gay friends.”
2. Stevie Nicks has compassion for people in the closet and talks about how she would come out if she was gay
Nicks has shown empathy for gay people who haven’t come out. “The idea of carrying that secret around would have killed me,” she told Out Magazine.
The “Landslide” singer has also talked about whether she would come out if she were gay. “If I were gay, the second that I knew, I would have said, ‘OK, everybody, this is how it is, and either you still like me or I don’t care.’”
She encouraged her gay fans to be open with their loved ones. “I think that if you are gay, you just have to say ‘It’s great!’ And hopefully you will find a great relationship. And hopefully all the straight people will find a relationship. And hopefully all the people like me who don’t care about having a relationship will continue to not care and just have a great dog.”
3. The Night of 1,000 Stevies indisputably makes Stevie Nicks a gay icon
According to the event’s website, The Night of 1,000 Stevies is “the largest and longest-running Stevie Nicks fan event in the world.” It’s an annual tribute to the songstress in which fans, particularly drag queens, dress up as Nicks and celebrate her music.
Nicks said she was “so tickled” when she heard about the Night of 1,000 Stevies. “I read about it and told my dad, ‘It’s a huge party thrown by fabulous gay men and women. They love my clothes and my fashion and my songs, and they all go to it and play my music and lip-synch!’” said Nicks.
“One day I’m going to show up, and they are not going to know it, because I’m going to be dressed as the best Stevie ever,” she continued. “I will be unrecognizably fantastic until I go up on stage and take the mic and burst into ‘Edge of Seventeen’ and blow everyone away.”
4. She appeared in the LGBTQ-friendly TV show ‘American Horror Story’
Nick has worked closely with Ryan Murphy on his shows Glee and American Horror Story, which are both considered LBGTQ-friendly shows with multiple gay characters and storylines.
She consulted with show creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck on the Fleetwood Mac episode of Glee. And she appeared as herself in season 3 of AHS, boldly embracing the decades-long accusations that she is a witch.
“In his own way, though, Ryan writes about misfits,” Nicks said of the show (via the LA Times). “He and Brad, they write about people that don’t fit in. And I definitely was one of those people.”
5. Stevie Nicks is a gay icon because she is authentically herself
Nicks has been very open and honest about her battles with addiction, her romantic life, her weight, and mistakes she’s made.
Her authenticity encourages fans to be themselves, too. And she looks out for fans by sharing the negative parts of her life story.
For example, Nicks said she hopes to help others by speaking about her history of drug abuse. “Try to let it be an epiphany for you, [the] 18-year-old person that is doing a lot of coke and smoking heroin and taking ecstasy and is on a dead-end road to hell,” she told Out Magazine.
“I want anybody who hears a doctor say, ‘Would you like me to write you a prescription of Klonopin?’ to get up and run out of the room screaming and take the air out of that doctor’s tires. I want them to hear the word ‘cocaine’ and think ‘brain hemorrhage, beauty gone, lines, aging, fat.’”
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