marieclaire.com.au 185the walls of her flash, new Beverly Hills
apartment – because she simply didn’t
know what else to do with them.W
hen Rumours was re-
leased in February 1977,
it cemented the band as
a global phenomenon,
with Stevie and her burgeoning bohe-
mian style of layered black chifon and
lace firmly at the epicentre. A look
which, when combined with her haunt-
ing rendition of “Rhiannon”, a song
about a Welsh witch, fuelled rumours
that she had mystical powers herself.
Her relationship with Lindsey,
however, failed to survive the sudden
jolt to the top, and they broke up just
before the start of the Rumours tour,
making their time on the road a tense
one. Their onstage passion and
ofstage tension were the backbone of
the band’s allure and success. Stevie
would depend on her friendship with
the only other woman in the band,
Christine McVie.
“We shared rooms, did each other’s
make-up and lived on Dunkin’ Donuts,”
said Christine of their friendship.
Stevie also started to surround
herself with an entourage of Stevie look-
alikes, including her childhood best
friend, Robin Snyder Anderson, who
was put on the payroll as a voice coach.
“She seemed to collect talented,
young, beautiful girls who would then
dress like her and follow her around all
the time,” said singer Kenny Loggins,after touring with Fleetwood Mac in- “I’d never seen anything like it.”
It wasn’t just her entourage that she
depended on. It was during this time
that Stevie also started to rely on Cour-
voisier cognac and cocaine to help her
navigate her frenzied existence. “I car-
ried a gram of cocaine in my boot at all
times,” she confessed during an inter-
view with Oprah Winfrey in 2013. Her
love life was equally tumultuous and
she was soon throwing herself from one
great romance to another. The first
was with married bandmate Mick
Fleetwood in 1977, which ended when
his wife, Jenny Boyd, begged her to
think of the couple’s two daughters.
Then came a wild fling with Eagles
frontman Don Henley, involving private
jets, limousines filled with gifts, a raun-
chy duet “Leather and Lace” and, later,
a pregnancy, which Stevie terminated.
There were also flash-in-the-pan
romances with singer-songwriter J.D.
Souther and producer Jimmy Iovine,
who worked with Stevie on her debut
solo album, Bella Donna.
Her career was accelerating from
success to success, but she would soon
be hit by a series of personal blows
as the ’80s cruelly unravelled at her
feet. The first came when best friend
Robin died from leukaemia in 1982,
after prematurely giving birth to a son.
“Something went
out that day;
something left,”
admits Stevie.
Gripped by
grief and fuelled
by a raging co-
caine addiction,
she married Robin’s widower husband,
Kim Anderson, in a misguided belief
that she could help him care for the cou-
ple’s sick child. “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.’” It was, she said, a terrible,
mistake. “We didn’t get married be-
cause we were in love,” she explained,
“we got married because we were griev-
ing.” They divorced three months later.
Soon after, in 1983, she started
dating Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh, who
would become her last public romance.
It ended three years later as drug
addiction tore the relationship apart.
In 1986, after blowing $1 million on
cocaine and being warned by a doctor
that she was one hit away from a brain
haemorrhage, Stevie finally completed
a 30-day treatment for her addiction.
But her addictive personality
simply transferred itself to another sub-
stance. A few months later, worried she
would relapse, a psychiatrist prescribed
her Klonopin, a tranquilising anti-
seizure drug used to treat anxiety. This
addiction, she says, robbed her of eight
years of her life. She told Rolling Stone
in 2017: “Maybe I would have gotten
married, maybe I would have had a
baby, maybe I would have made three or
four more great albums with Fleetwood
Mac. That was the prime of my life.”
Today, the singer has an impressive
legacy and a cool $75 million in the
bank, releasing eight
solo albums and a
packed touring schedule
as both a solo act and
with Fleetwood Mac.
Later this month,
she’ll hit a milestone
that many, including
herself, didn’t believe
she would make. So,
what does the reigning
queen of rock’n’roll
think about turning 70?
“I don’t like that
number,” she answers.Left to right: the
“audience addict”
on stage in 1980;
and in 1983 with Kim
Anderson, her best
friend’s widower,
whom she wed in a
drug-fuelled low.Fleetwood Mac in
concert in New
York this January.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES.
LIFE STORIES