Stevie Nicks Told Katy Perry To Not Have Music Rivals

Stevie Nicks said she once gave Katy Perry a word of advice, which the singer says helped her greatly in her momentous career. The Fleetwood Mac singer, 73, revealed in an interview with The New Yorker that she and Perry, 34, once had a run-in at the Corinthia Hotel in London back in 2012 and the pop star brought up the topic of music industry rivalries.

"She said, 'So Stevie, who are your rivals?' And I said, 'I don't have rivals.' And her big blue eyes got bigger and bluer," Nicks recalled to the publication. "And I said, 'No Katy, I don't, and neither do you. You are Katy Perry, you're who you are, you do what you do and you're great at it. I'm Stevie Nicks, I do what I do and I'm great at it. We don't have rivals. That's just ridiculous.'"

Nicks said Perry delivered an "as if" stance on the idea that she has no rivalries in the music biz and referenced the ongoing feud between Perry fans and Taylor Swift's fandom known as the "Swifties." Nicks recalled Perry saying, "'Well, there's like, the Taylor Swift army and there's like, the Katy army and there's like—' And I was like, 'That's just bulls---. You have to just walk away from that. Don't carry that around in your mind because then they're winning the game.'"

It was then that Nicks told Perry a relatable story about the time she and her bandmate Christine McVie, 78, vowed to never allow men to dictate their careers or downplay their talent and skills. "We were very protective of each other. We made a pact, in the very beginning, that we would never be treated with disrespect by all the male musicians in the community," Nicks said. "And we really stuck to it. I think we did the pinky swear thing that, if we ever feel like we're being treated like that, we would just get up and walk out—and we did. We would just say, 'Well, this party is over for us.'"

Nicks said that she grew close in her relationship with McVie and that she knew that the pair needed to stick together if they were to sustain any longevity in the cutthroat music business. "Sometimes opposites attract," Nicks said.