The Shady Truth About Stevie Nicks' Short Marriage To Kim Anderson

Stevie Nicks has been open about her high-profile relationships, most notably with former Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham. In 1976, while recording their classic album "Rumours," the longtime couple ended their romantic relationship, per The Los Angeles Times. Some of the biggest songs on the album -– the Buckingham fronted "Go Your Own Way" and Nicks' retort, "Dreams" – are thought to be written about the end of the rock couple's love affair. Nicks once said she may have married Buckingham had it not been for Fleetwood Mac. "I think, in Lindsey's heart, he thinks if we hadn't joined Fleetwood Mac, we would still have become famous, and we probably would have gotten married," Nicks once told Q magazine (per ShowBiz CheatSheet). 

But the Grammy-winning singer has also been clear about why she felt marriage was not in the cards for her. "If Christine [McVie] was in this room with me right now, she'd tell you that we both made the decision not to have kids and instead follow our musical muse around the world," Nicks told The Guardian in 2020. "It's not my job, it's who I am." 

While she never married Buckingham, Nicks did have a little-known marriage that was so short that it didn't affect her career at all. But it's also something she regretted almost immediately.

Stevie Nicks once told The Los Angeles Times that her father said something haunting about how her career dominated everything else in her life, including her relationships. "No man would be happy being Mr. Stevie Nicks for very long," Jess Nicks once told his daughter. Those words turned out to be true, although the unhappiness was not totally due to her career.

In 1983, Steve Nicks secretly married Kim Anderson, who was the widower of her late best friend Robin Snyder. The marriage came three months following Robin's death from leukemia just after she gave birth to a baby boy, Matthew, per The Sun. Nicks, who had been named the baby's godmother, quickly realized the marriage was a "terrible, terrible mistake," according to Vulture. "We didn't get married because we were in love, we got married because we were grieving and it was the only way that we could feel like we were doing anything," Nicks once said. "That wasn't really a marriage ... We did it to take care of her son. And, three weeks later, we realized that wasn't going to work."

In 1990, Stevie Nicks opened up about her "crazy" marriage to Kim Anderson, The "Rhiannon" singer explained that she felt the only thing she could do to help "take the load" off her best friend's widower was to marry him and help raise the baby. "I think in her heart Robin knew I would go after Kim. I had known her for 20 years and him for five, and I felt this baby belonged to me almost as much as it did to them," she told Woman's Own (via The Sun). Nicks also said a lot of people "refused" to come to her wedding. "They thought I'd lost my mind, which I obviously had at the time," she said.

The singer went into greater detail in a 2013 interview on "Oprah's Masterclass" (per YouTube). She explained that she became obsessed with raising her late friend's baby boy. "I just went on a mission because I wanted that baby, and I convinced Kim. And so three months after Robin died, we got married," she said. "And I thought that's what Robin would want somehow, and it just blew up in our faces because it was so the wrong thing. To take Matthew and her husband was so beyond insane." 

Nicks said she ultimately told Anderson that she didn't love him and asked for a divorce. While she still believes the marriage was a mistake, Nicks did pay for Matthew's college expenses. She is also a pseudo grandmother to the now-grown man's daughter, whom he named Robin, according to Vulture. Nicks said she is now known as "Grandma Stevie."