Stevie Nicks has revealed she thinks Fleetwood Mac would have separated if she didn’t have an abortion 40 years ago.
The lead vocalist 76, found fame in the pop-rock band in 1975 and had a tumultuous romance with her band co-member Lindsey Buckingham. Following the end of the relationship, Nicks began dating the Eagles singer Don Henley in the late Seventies.
Nicks revealed she became pregnant with Henley’s child, who she deemed too immature to become a father, and claims he leaked the news of her abortion to the public.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, Nicks said: “It was let out to the public by Don Henley. He called me to apologise. I said, ‘You know what, Don? We did go out for about a year and have remained such good friends. Leather and Lace draws us together forever,’ she said, referring to their 1981 single.
“So, anyway, he let that one out of the bag. I probably would’ve never. Why would I say anything about it? Everything was totally legal. It was, like, 1977, or going into 1978.”
She continued: “Don was the first guy I actually went out with after Lindsey and I broke up. When this pregnancy happened, it was like, ‘What the heck happened?’ I am completely respectful of the world rules here, and all of a sudden this happens to me and I can’t figure it out.”
Nicks had a contraceptive coil at the time the pregnancy occurred. She recalled: “I go to my GYN, and he says, ‘Well, you’ve been protected by your Copper-7 IUD, but you have a tipped uterus. That IUD is only protecting half of you, and we didn’t know that.’”
The singer explained the abortion was the right choice for her at the time as Fleetwood Mac were enjoying the success of their 1977 album Rumours, which Buckingham has previously said the band put aside their “personal difference” to create.
Nicks continued: “Now, what the hell am I going to do? I cannot have a child. I am not the kind of woman who would hand my baby over to a nanny, not in a million years.
“So we would be dragging a baby around the world on tour, and I wouldn’t do that to my baby. I wouldn’t say I just need nine months. I would say I need a couple of years, and that would break up the band, period.”
She explained: “So, my decision was to have an abortion. If people want to be mad at me about that, I don’t really care, because my life was my life and my plan was my plan and had been since I was in the fourth grade.”
When asked if she was hinting that Fleetwood Mac would have broken up if she’d remained pregnant, Nicks replied: “Done. And that would’ve been sad, because I would not have married Don Henley.
“That was a really fun relationship, but he was in a bigger band than me,’ she added, referring to the Eagles. “Those boys were rock stars, par extraordinaire. Nobody in that band was ready to get married and have children.”
Nicks admitted she didn’t want the pressure of solo parenting. “I knew it would just be on me,” she said. “And I wouldn’t have even known what to do with that responsibility.”
The Fleetwood Mac star has previously spoken out about her abortion and has maintained she has no regrets about terminating her pregnancy.
Back in 2020 she told The Guardian: “There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly.
“And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs...I would have had to walk away. And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy.
“And I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission.”
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, the NHS signposts to support through this page. Or you can speak to someone in confidence at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s largest abortion provider, by calling 03457 30 40 30 or emailing info@bpas.org
