Stevie Nicks fears COVID-19: ‘If I get it, I will probably never sing again’
You thought those floaty dresses and shawls and smoky eyes were the most dramatic things about Stevie Nicks? Far from it.
The Fleetwood Mac singer, 72, is asking younger people to wear masks and social distance to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and she’s doing it with a blend of statistics, harrowing language pulled from science and one of the “American Horror Story” seasons she appeared in.
“If I get it [COVID-19], I will probably never sing again. Put me on a ventilator and I will be hoarse for the rest of my life — I don’t have much time,” Nicks said plainly in a Tuesday post on Facebook.
She cited the numbers of people who had died in the United States since her previous COVID-19 post: more than 22,000 in 13 days.
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Nicks warned against people who aren’t wearing masks or adhering to other safety guidelines. “The masks and the distancing have now become a political statement. It is not political. It is a silent killer hiding in the shadows. It is stalking you. It doesn’t care who you are… It’s just looking for a victim,” she wrote.
The singer-songwriter got more dramatic as she recalled the season of the TV series “American Horror Story” she had appeared on.
“It had turned into an apocalypse above ground. A serious ‘shelter in place.’” And unless you were a famous witch or a wealthy warlock or just a very rich person, you did not get into one of the underground bunkers — But if you did get in, you arrived in a beautifully tattered black Victorian carriage drawn by two noble, monstrous but dying — black horses,” Nicks wrote.
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She said it was just a story but that she felt the gravity of it at the time. Characters didn’t want to leave their safe houses because only death awaited them above ground. When they did go out, they were clad in hazmat suits and gas masks. She found the scenario terrifying, she said.
Then Nicks switched from screenplay to science.
“Are you aware, everyone, that if you survive this virus — you will be fighting the after effects for the rest of your life. Micro-blood clots — in all your organs; in your brain — neurological problems; a cough that rips your throat apart and keeps coming back,” she wrote.
On Twitter, she linked to a Washington Post story that focused on details about COVID-19, including some of those listed above, that have been revealed by autopsies done at NYU Langone Health in New York City.
“This virus can kill you. It can kill me. Kill my chances of pulling on those boots and hitting the road,” Nicks wrote. “Kill the chances that any of us in the music community will ever get back to the stage, because we would never put you in danger — never take you and your life for granted. Never put your family members who are older and more fragile in danger. You should feel the same. You take deadly chances because you think you’re immortal. You’re not.”
Nicks declared that younger people needed to stop thinking they were immortal and slap on masks.
“Call it Armageddon. Call it a Pandemic. Call it the Apocalypse,” the singer wrote. “This is a real American Horror Story. It is not a mini-series — It is a tragedy.”
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