Stevie Nicks Was Once Banned From Visiting Her Friend in the Hospital
When Stevie Nicks rose to fame in Fleetwood Mac, she brought her best friend Robin Snyder Anderson with her on the road as a vocal coach. The pair were nearly inseparable, and Nicks was devastated by Anderson’s death. She admitted that when Anderson was receiving treatment for cancer, she insisted that Nicks stay away. The Fleetwood Mac singer explained the reason behind her friend’s request.
Stevie Nicks and Robin Anderson were close friends
Nicks met Anderson in high school, and the two became close. With Anderson’s encouragement, Nicks performed a song at a high school assembly. This moment helped drive her future career in music. When Nicks began touring with Fleetwood Mac, Anderson joined the band on the road as Nicks’ vocal coach. According to the book Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams, and Rumours by Zoë Howe, Anderson was “one of the only people who really knew Stevie.”
“She’s just been in my life since I was 14,” Nicks said on VH1’s Behind the Music. “She was the one person that knew me for the person I really was and not for the famous Stevie, and it was good to have someone who knew the real you besides just your mom and dad.
Robin Anderson requested that Nicks stay away from her hospital room
Anderson was diagnosed with leukemia just after Nicks released her solo album, Bella Donna. The diagnosis coincided with the news that Anderson was pregnant.
“My very best friend Robin called me and told me she had terminal leukemia and that they thought that maybe she might last three months,” Nicks said. “So without a doubt, it was the absolute high and low of success. I never got to enjoy Bella Donna at all because my friend was dying. Something went out that day, something left.”
The news was devastating, and Nicks had a hard time dealing with it. She frequently used cocaine at this time and relied on it to help her through visits to Anderson’s hospital room.
“I was so high on coke. I’d drink half a bottle of brandy on the way there, ’cause I couldn’t stand it,” Nicks told The Guardian. “She was so sick.”
Eventually, Anderson told her not to come back to the hospital.
“She said to me, ‘Don’t come back until you’re not high – don’t come back into this place where everybody is dying.’”
Stevie Nicks and Kim Anderson got married
Anderson died just days after giving birth to her son, Matthew. Motivated by grief, Nicks married her friend’s widower, Kim Anderson.
“She died, and they took the baby, and it was like he was three months premature, and it was horrible, it was such an upsetting situation, you know, everyone was just so devastated, and there was this little premature baby, and I just went crazy,” she said.
They were married for three months before Nicks felt that she experienced a sign from Anderson to get a divorce. Despite this, she still maintains a relationship with Matthew and serves as a grandmother figure to his daughter.
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