One Of Stevie Nicks' Biggest Regrets Is All Too Common

Fleetwood Mac musician Stevie Nicks says she doesn't have many regrets. Her life as a rockstar has been full of love, drugs, and music. But now, as a senior citizen, Nicks wishes she would've voted in elections because she always chose not to. "I never voted until I was 70, but I regret that," the Grammy-winner told MSNBC in October 2024, weeks before the presidential election. "I've told everybody that onstage for the last two years. I regret that, and I don't have very many regrets."

So, what issue concerned Nicks so much that she decided not only to change her ways but also to share her stance with the world? Abortion. She, herself, had one in the 1970s, she told Rolling Stone, when Fleetwood Mac was at the height of its fame. "I am not the kind of woman who would hand my baby over to a nanny, not in a million years. So we would be dragging a baby around the world on tour, and I wouldn't do that to my baby. I wouldn't say I just need nine months. I would say I need a couple of years, and that would break up the band, period. If people want to be mad at me about that, I don't really care."

That's why, in October, Nicks said loud and clear she was voting for Vice President Kamala Harris. "We have to find a way to bring back Roe v. Wade," she told MSNBC, because as opposed to when Nicks needed care, many women in America today need to travel out of state for abortion medication.

When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Stevie Nicks began writing "The Lighthouse," a single she considers a "protest song," which she released just weeks before she shared her voting regrets and how the fight for reproductive rights sparked her creativity. "It seemed like overnight, people were saying 'what can we, as a collective force, do about this,'" the rockstar wrote on Instagram. "For me, it was to write a song." She explained to Rolling Stone how she praised women activists in the song. "We are that light that goes out, and we bring the ships in so they don't crash. We save lives every day. The way I feel about this upcoming election is that Kamala Harris is the lighthouse, too." But she isn't the only musician who would have preferred different 2024 election results, as multiple celebrities left the country after Donald Trump's win. Nicks openly encouraged all her fellow musicians "to write some songs about what's happening," according to MSNBC.

Even though there are structural barriers that keep some Americans from voting, many don't exercise their right by choice: they dislike politics, they don't support the policy proposals of either candidate, or they believe their vote doesn't matter, according to Brookings. According to a Citizen Data survey conducted in November 2024, 33% of Americans don't believe their vote even somewhat matters. Nicks told MSNBC that she used to come up with many reasons not to vote. "You can say, 'Oh, I didn't have time. I was this and that! In the long run, you didn't have an hour? You didn't have an hour of your time that you could have gone and voted?" However, she encouraged folks to go ahead and vote for whichever candidate "speaks to [them] and [their] beliefs" on Instagram.