Stevie Nicks hated being called a witch: 'I dreamed only about giving a little fairy tale to people'

Ever since Stevie Nicks, one of the best singers in rock 'n' roll, first sang a song about a Welsh witch named Rhiannon, fans have believed her to be a witch. She didn't help herself by dressing like one or having witchy lyrics in her songs. According to the Fleetwood Mac singer, though, she never intended for people to think she dabbled in the occult.

Stevie Nicks was creeped out by the witch rumors

Nicks can't deny that her aesthetic is very witchy. Since her first gigs with Fleetwood Mac, she's donned beautiful shawls and dresses, usually black. She twirls around on stage like a fairy, and everything is very dreamy.

After releasing "Rhiannon," which was actually based on a powerful goddess, not a witch, fans started writing to Nicks about witchcraft. It scared the singer. She began thinking someone would even kidnap her.

In 2013, Nicks told the LA Times , "In the beginning of my career, the whole idea that some wacky, creepy people were writing, 'You're a witch, you're a witch!' was so arresting. And there I am like, 'No, I'm not! I just wear black because it makes me look thinner you idiots.'"

Nicks stopped wearing black for a year. When she got sick of not wearing the color, she said to herself, "OK, just bring it freaks. I'm not going to wear apricot. You think whatever you want because I'm going to wear my beautiful, long black dress. Get out of my face."

Stevie Nicks only wanted to give people a fairytale

When Nicks went solo in the early 1980s, her debut, Bella Donna, did little to quell the witch rumors. However, in 1982, Nicks told High Times that she only dreamed about giving "a little fairy tale to people."

"That’s what the outfit is on my album cover, that’s what that bird is (Reaches for the album jacket)," she said. "That bird belongs to my brother, that’s the only reason I could work with a wild animal. That’s Max on the front. With my clothes and the things that I wear, I have so much fun with them.

"I collect marionettes and dolls, so I have an incredible collection, and I carry these things all over the world. They're so real. See, that's a fantasy... My fantasy is giving a little bit of the fairy princess to all the people out there that maybe don't have the Hans Christian Andersen books, and the Grimm's fairy tales. If that's the only thing I can do for them, well, that's fine."

Nicks said that she doesn't sit around putting black spells on people. She called that "silly and stupid." The "Dreams" singer said she loves good witches, not bad ones, because she's a coward and gets very scared.

While promoting 1983's The Wild Heart, Nicks touched on the lasting impact of the witchy rumors. "I do not believe in witchcraft as a natural philosophy at all," she told ET. "I just think it's fun. And I love black clothes, and I love moons and stars and Merlin hats and Mickey Mouse. But no, I do not believe in that side of it at all."

As for the fans who still believed her to be a witch, Nicks said, "I don't like it all and I wish people would stop thinking about that, because I spent thousands of dollars on beautiful black clothes and had to stop wearing them for a long time, because a lot of people scared me."

Nicks did a cameo for 'American Horror Story' despite hating being called a witch

The witch rumors followed Nicks into the 1990s, but Nicks herself didn't help. In 1998, a Presbyterian minister in Huntsville, Alabama, stopped a high school student from singing "Landslide" for a baccalaureate program for graduating seniors. The student said, "The minister said the leader of Fleetwood Mac is a witch and a Satan worshipper."

They never mentioned Nicks directly, but everyone knew who they meant. Nicks released a statement about the comment that said, "I can't believe people are still telling me I'm a witch because I wear black."

However, that same year, Nicks contributed two songs, "If You Ever Did Believe" and "Crystal," to the soundtrack for Practical Magic. By 2013, it seemed Nicks cared little about the rumors. She signed on for a cameo as a "white witch" for American Horror Story: Coven. Despite hating being called a witch, Nicks' reason for doing it was fearlessness.

She told the LA Times that when the opportunity to do the cameo came along, she thought, "What, really, am I going to turn this down because of all that past nonsense?" She continued, "I'm way too old and I've been through way too much to give up an opportunity like this. I'm fearless. You have to be fearless in life. I'm not afraid of anything."

After being called a witch more times than she can probably count and hating it for decades, it's good that Nicks' made peace with the rumors and isn't scared anymore. Still, she didn't help herself most of the time, and people will always believe what they want about a celebrity.

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