Stevie Nicks’ Husband Sold Her Demo Tapes at a Flea Market After Their Divorce
In the 1980s, Stevie Nicks briefly had a husband. She married Kim Anderson after Robin Anderson, his wife and her best friend, died. They did not remain together for long. After their divorce, Nicks went back to being a touring musician, and Anderson cleared her things out of the house. He sold most of it, including a suitcase full of important demo tapes.
Stevie Nicks was briefly married to husband Kim Anderson in the 1980s
In 1983, Nicks’ high school best friend Robin died of leukemia shortly after giving birth to a son, Matthew. Nicks and Anderson, both grief-stricken, decided to marry in order to raise Matthew together.
“It was a terrible, terrible mistake,” Nicks said to Vulture. “We didn’t get married because we were in love, we got married because we were grieving and it was the only way that we could feel like we were doing anything.”
She explained that the marriage was a mistake.
“I decided, in my completely insane state of mind, that I was just going to marry her husband so that I could take care of the child. And, well, that didn’t work very well,” she told The New Yorker. “So, for three months, getting ready to go on a big tour, I tried to be a mom, and it was impossible.”
Stevie Nicks’ husband accidentally sold her demos
After three months of marriage, Nicks and Anderson realized that their relationship couldn’t last.
“Out of nowhere, I just said, ‘You know what? We need to get a divorce.'”
She moved out and went on tour, leaving many of her things in the house they had briefly shared. This included a suitcase full of cassettes containing her demo tapes.
“I left, and he just decided to clean out the whole house, and there was a suitcase of cassettes,” she said. “I don’t really know that he knew what was on all these cassettes.”
According to Nicks, Anderson sold the tapes at a flea market in 1983. Eventually, though, they found their way back to her.
“I don’t think that the people who bought it necessarily even knew what was exactly in it either,” she said. “But somebody [eventually] figured out what it was, and then all of a sudden all these demos were out there in the world. So some fans who found out about this bought them and sent them back to me. That’s how cool my fans are.”
She reconnected with Kim Anderson’s son later in life
After their marriage ended, Nicks completely lost communication with Anderson and Matthew. Later in life, though, she reconnected with Matthew and helped put him through college. She’s also grown close to his daughter, Robin.
“She was at my house and she comes into the kitchen, grabs my hand and goes: ‘Come with me, Grandma Stevie,’ and I’m going: ‘Did this child just call me Grandma Stevie?’ She did,” Nicks told The Guardian in 2020. “And on that day I wrote in my journal and it said: ‘I promise you, Robin, that I will be Grandma Stevie until death do us part.’ Life has these weird turnarounds, you know. I say to my friend Robin, who died so long ago: ‘Look through my eyes at your granddaughter.’ She was yours and now she is mine.”
