There’s a lot of love between music legend Stevie Nicks and Harry Styles. There seems to be no end to the kind words they have for each other and their respective music. However, their speeches at Nicks’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction left everyone, including Nicks, a little confused.
Styles was given the honor of inducting the influential performer and songwriter who became the first woman ever to be inducted twice, for her work in her band and her solo career (22 men have had the honor before her). Styles waxed poetic about the impact Nicks has had on the industry, on music, and in his own life.
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“She walked a path created by Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell — visionary women who had to throw a couple of elbows to create their own space,” said Styles. He recalled how “Dreams” was the first song he ever knew all the words to, even if he didn’t know what they all meant. Just as we questioned whether our hearts could be any more warmed, Styles wrapped up his speech by saying, “When she sings, the world is hers, and it is yours. She is everything you’ve ever wanted in a lady, in a lover, in a friend.” Wait a minute Harry, lover?
This gets even more perplexing knowing that, in a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Nicks referred to Styles as the son she never had. “He’s Mick [Fleetwood]’s and my love child,” she told Rolling Stone. “When Harry came into our lives, I said, ‘Oh my God, this is the son I never had.’ So I adopted him.”
Styles wasn’t the only one making strange comments in their speech. While raving about Styles and his career so far, Nicks accidentally referred to his former band as *NSYNC. Quickly realizing her mistake, she corrected herself and said that she’s “never gonna live that down.”
All misspeaking aside, Nicks’ second induction is a long time coming. Nicks was first inducted with Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and has been eligible as a solo artist since 2006. She and Styles dueted on her 1981 single with Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” the song that proved she could hold her own as a solo artist. Nicks has produced eight solo albums. Less than three months after its release, her solo debut, Bella Donna, topped the Billboard album charts and reached platinum status.
Her career makes her an obvious choice by a landslide (yes, I went there), a fact that was not lost on Nicks. “But for me to tell you a story from my heart, about what this means to me, is very hard because this has never happened to me before,” she said. “It’s only happened for 22 men and four — zero women, and now one woman.”
Of the 888 people that have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 69 have been women. That’s only 7.7%. “I’m hoping…,” said Nicks in her induction speech, “that what I am doing is opening up the door for other women to go like, ‘Hey man, I can do it!’”