“I’d say to him, ‘You say words that I would prefer you didn’t say. I think they’re unnecessary!’”: the modern pop superstar that Stevie Nicks thinks should tone down their swearing

(Image credit: Mike Coppola/WireImage)

In their 70s imperial phase, Fleetwood Mac were hardly prudes. This is the band, after all, who considered thanking their cocaine dealer in the liner notes to their classic, world-conquering record Rumours. Stevie Nicks, for example, only knocked her drug addiction on the head when her doctor advised her that she wasn’t far off suffering a brain haemorrhage due to substance abuse. She already had a hole in her nose because of it. She took the advice seriously.

But it doesn’t mean that Nicks, a legend of rock’n’roll debauchery and one of the finest songwriters of her generation, doesn’t draw the line somewhere. And that line comes down just before people start swearing too much.

As documented in the 2018 book The 10 Commandments: The Rock Star’s Guide To Life, Nicks explained that she had become a big fan of Canadian alternative R&B superstar The Weeknd but she had one major gripe that was stmying her enjoyment of the Blinding Lights and Starboy superstar’s music: he was cussing too much.

“I play The Weeknd’s records one after the other when I’m in my bathroom getting ready to go out, or just hanging out with myself,” Nicks explained. “He’s brilliant. And his voice, he could’ve come straight out of 1975, he could’ve been like Stevie Winwood. He’s over-talented.”

But this is where Nicks laid out the advice she would pass on to Abel Tesfaye if they were ever to come face-to-face. “If I were to meet him,” Nicks said, “I would probably say: ‘You say over and over again words that I would prefer you didn’t say. I think they’re unnecessary. However, even though I think a lot of your songs are super-dirty, I still really like ‘em, so I’ve given you a pass on that!’.”

That’s The Weeknd told, then. Stop swearing, man, Stevie Nicks doesn’t like it. Just say “feck” like my mum used to do, she said it didn’t count.

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.