Stevie Nicks reveals her advice to Katy Perry about pop star rivalries
Stevie Nicks has no interest in stan wars.
The “Edge of Seventeen” singer recently discussed her outlook on pop star rivalries, noting her disdain for artificially created tension between artists.
“I hate it,” she said in a new interview with Rolling Stone. “About 10 years ago, Katy Perry was talking to me about the internet armies of all the girl singers, and how cruel and rancid they were. I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the internet.'”
In Nicks’ telling, Perry couldn’t process that revelation. “She said, ‘So, who are your rivals?'” the Fleetwood Mac legend recalled. “I just looked at her. It was my steely look. I said, ‘Katy, I don’t have rivals. I have friends. All the other women singers that I know are friends. Nobody’s competing. Get off the internet and you won’t have rivals either.'”
Perry’s “Katycat” following is known in online circles as one of the more fervent pop star fan bases, with her disciples engaging in prolonged feuds with fans of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, and more at various points throughout her career — though Perry has seldom acknowledged feud rumors having any legitimacy.
Elsewhere in the Rolling Stone interview, Nicks offered her thoughts on other 21st-century pop stars, including Swift. “Do you see my little bracelet?” she asked the outlet, pointing to a friendship bracelet akin to those worn by Swifties at the Eras Tour. “I haven’t taken it off for almost a year. She is really smart, but she also went through a lot before. She’s in a good place right now, and I think she has a good man. I hope they fall deeper and deeper in love and ride off into the sunset. He does his thing and she does her thing, and then they come back together and get married and have babies if she wants that. I just want all of that for her.”
Nicks also weighed in on Chappell Roan’s sudden ascension to superstardom. “Evidently she likes my music a lot,” she said. “Me and a friend of mine went and looked at her schedule, and it was outrageous. What she’s already done and then what she’s going into. It’s as bad as any schedule we ever did, and she’s new, and she’s young.”
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Nicks said she sympathizes and fears for Roan’s long-term endurance. “I said, ‘They’ll burn her out if that’s what they want to do, because there’s always somebody to replace you,'” she recalled. “It must make them all very fearful. That’s why it’s good that Chappell just said, ‘Well, go ahead, replace me. I’m canceling because I’m not going to drop dead for all you people.'”