Stevie Nicks Said Her Ex Hung Up on Her When She Invited Him to Her Wedding, but Most Guests Had the Same Reaction
In 1983, Stevie Nicks began preparing for her wedding, much to the dismay of those who knew her. She was marrying her best friend’s widower, and many doubted that she was making the right decision. The two had grown close not through love but grief and a desperate desire to care for her friend’s infant son. When Nicks told her ex-boyfriend Don Henley, he hung up the phone on her. She said that this was how many people reacted.
The Fleetwood Mac singer once dated Don Henley
After her breakup from Lindsey Buckingham, Nicks began dating The Eagles’ Henley. She said his romantic gestures were so over the top that they upset her bandmates.
“Here’s one thing that Don did that freaked out my band so much: we’re all in Miami,” she said, per the book Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis. “They’re recording at the gorgeous pink house they’re renting. It’s right on the water, totally romantic. Anyway, he sends a limousine driver to our hotel with a box of presents for me, and they’re delivered right to the breakfast room where everyone’s eating. There’s a stereo, a bunch of cool records. There’s incredible flowers and fruits, a beautiful display.”
Nicks knew at once that Buckingham wouldn’t be happy to see the gifts.
“The limousine driver is putting all this out onto the table and I’m going, ‘Oh please … please … this is not going to go down well,’” she said. “And they want to know who this is from. And Lindsey is not happy.”
Stevie Nicks said Don Henley hung up on her when she invited him to her wedding
In the 1980s, Nicks’ childhood best friend, Robin Anderson, died of leukemia just after giving birth to her son, Matthew. Nicks felt a responsibility to support Robin’s husband, Kim, and Matthew.
“I was determined to take care of that baby, so I said to Kim, ‘I don’t know, I guess we should just get married,’” Nicks said, per the book Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams, and Rumours by Zoe Howe.
Practically everyone Nicks knew thought this was a terrible idea. She explained that “nobody understood. Nobody. My parents thought it was the most crazy thing, and they thought I was nuts anyway….”
She called her ex, Henley, to invite him to the wedding, and he immediately shut her down. She said that this was how most people reacted.
“I remember calling Don Henley and saying, ‘Don, I’m getting married to Kim. Will you come to the wedding?’ He said, ‘No,’ and hung up,” she explained. “Then he called back a couple of days later and said, ‘All right, I’ll come,’ and that is the same reaction I got from every person I called.”
Stevie Nicks later said the wedding and brief marriage was a mistake
Nicks came to agree with the friends and family who believed her marriage was a mistake.
“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.”
After just three months of marriage, the couple divorced. Several years later, though, Nicks reconnected with Matthew. She put him through college, and has a close relationship with his daughter.
