The Stevie Nicks Music Video That Makes Her Want to Go Back in Time and ‘Stab’ Herself
Stevie Nicks made many well-loved music videos with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist. When looking back on some of them, though, she can’t help but cringe. Some remind her of the messy relationship dynamics she had with her bandmates. Others are tough to watch because of the reminder of the drugs she was using at the time. She explained that the video for “I Can’t Wait” makes her furious with her past self.
Stevie Nicks said 1 music video is painful for her to watch
After joining Fleetwood Mac, Nicks, like many artists of the era, began using cocaine. Her usage ramped up over the years, eventually reaching a point where she had trouble functioning.
“I had a meeting with Stevie Nicks where we sat on her bed,” director Bob Giraldi said, per the book I Want My MTV by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum. “I’ve never seen a woman that stoned in my life. She was so wasted, we couldn’t even communicate.”
Nicks continued working, releasing albums and making music videos. She said she has some difficulty looking back on photos and videos of herself from this time. The video for “I Can’t Wait” is a particular challenge for her.
“‘I Can’t Wait’ is one of my favorite songs, and it became a famous video,” Nicks said. “But now I look at that video, I look at my eyes, and I say to myself, ‘Could you have laid off the pot, the coke, and the tequila for three days, so you could have looked a little better? Because your eyes look like they’re swimming.’ It just makes me want to go back into that video and stab myself.”
She said she was in a similar state in most of her videos from this era.
“Was I doing drugs on the set of my videos? Absolutely,” she said. “Which videos? All of them. I knew only two people from that era who didn’t do drugs. And one of them did drugs, but never very much.”
Stevie Nicks went to rehab
After speaking with a plastic surgeon, Nicks learned that she had a hole in her nose that could result in a brain hemorrhage if she continued using cocaine. Following this conversation, she checked herself into the Betty Ford Center. While preparing to go, her friends and family hosted an intervention for her. Nicks was not happy with them.
“I said, well, f*** all of you, I have a bed at Betty Ford and I’m leaving the day after tomorrow to go to Palm Springs, to go to rehab on my own dime and it’s my idea, not your idea, and you’re all fired,” she told The Face. “And mom and dad, I’ll see you in Phoenix later. I walked out, got in the car, and made my doctor take me home and I never spoke to that doctor again for five years.”
After her stay at the Betty Ford Center, Nicks stopped using cocaine.
Stevie Nicks thinks Fleetwood Mac could have made better music videos if they hadn’t been using drugs
Nicks also made many videos with Fleetwood Mac, which she said were often frustrating. The relationship dynamics between bandmates were so fraught that it was challenging to film together.
“There’s a scene in ‘Gypsy’ where Lindsey and I are dancing,” she said. “And we weren’t getting along very well then. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Lindsey; I certainly didn’t want to be in his arms. If you watch the video, you’ll see I wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t a very good dancer.”
Still, she liked the finished product of some of these videos. Nicks said she wished they hadn’t been using as many drugs. She believed they would have been able to make more quality videos.
“I think we probably would have gone on to make many more great videos like ‘Gypsy’ had we not been so into drugs.”
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
