Stevie Nicks is opening up about her decision to have an abortion during the height of Fleetwood Mac's career. Formed in the late '60s, the band shot to fame when Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group in 1975. Two years later, the iconic singer and songwriter, who along with fellow bandmate Christine McVie played key roles as songwriters and vocalists who often sang lead, became pregnant while dating the Eagles singer Don Henley.
In an interview with The Guardian published on Wednesday, Nicks said she was faced with two options: have a baby and quit the band or go ahead with an abortion.
"If I had not had that abortion, I'm pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac," Nicks told the outlet. "There's just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs … I would have had to walk away."
Nicks felt it was important for the band to feature two female singers and songwriters, and that impacted her decision to have an abortion.
"And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people's hearts and make people so happy," she said. "And I thought, 'You know what? That's really important. There's not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers.' That was my world's mission."
Earlier this year, Mick Fleetwood's ex-wife Jenny Boyd shared details of her former husband's affair with Nicks in a tell-all interview with Fox News.
Fleetwood Mac's album "Rumours" was a roaring success, but behind the scenes, things were complicated. Nicks had split with her longtime lover and musical partner, Buckingham, and things between Fleetwood and Boyd were shaky. Nicks and Fleetwood fell into each other's arms.
"She was obviously very pretty. And if you're creating with somebody and constantly on the road, constantly singing together and just experiencing this euphoria up on the stage — there was bound to be an attraction," Boyd said.
Speaking about the affair, the former model said that it was all "water under the bridge" now.
"Mick and I are great friends. We are parents and grandparents," she explained. "We have a love. And I think we all kind of have a love for each other because we've all experienced such extraordinary times together."