Stevie Nicks is recalling the single-most valuable advice she ever gave Katy Perry.
The legendary Fleetwood Mac singer recently sat down for an expansive interview with Rolling Stone and discussed politics, death and the internet.
One particular tidbit about modern-day pop star rivalries has already taken social media by storm.
“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,” Nicks told the outlet. “I said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the internet.’ She said, ‘So, who are your rivals?’”
“I just looked at her,” the 76-year-old continued. “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.”
While the iconic songstress certainly knows a thing or two about musical rivalries herself, Nicks became famous long before social media even existed — and hasn’t had to endure them in front of millions like Perry did in her former feud with Taylor Swift.
Nicks previously opened up about this chat with Perry in The New Yorker in 2022, and said she advised Perry to “just walk away from that” because “they’re winning” when the “Teenage Dream” singer rued that the “Taylor Swift army” was duking it out with her “Katy army” online.
Perry and Swift were publicly friendly with each other in the early days of social media, but whispers of their beef grew stronger as their respective careers flourished, with Swift divulging in 2014 that her song “Bad Blood” was about another female pop star.
“For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not,” Swift told Rolling Stone at the time, noting that this mysterious fellow singer crossed the line in 2013: “She did something so horrible. I was like, ’Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.′ And it wasn’t even about a guy!”
“It had to do with business,” she added. “She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational — you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her.”
One day after the interview was published, Perry wrote on social media, “Watch out for the Regina George in sheep’s clothing…” — a reference to 2004’s “Mean Girls” — all but confirming Swift’s comments were about her.
Perry eventually seemed to take Nicks’ advice, however, and sent Swift a literal olive branch in 2019. Swift even featured Perry in one of her music videos at the time and said they talked “for hours” after ending their feud — and blamed “the media” for starting it.