Stevie Nicks Says Viewing ‘Daisy Jones and The Six’ Felt Like ‘a Ghost Watching My Own Story’
Yes, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling book really was inspired by Fleetwood Mac—here's the proof
Key Takeaways
- The 1997 Fleetwood Mac performance of Landslide helped inspire the entire novel.
- Nicks pitched a Season 2 storyline inspired by her real bond with Lindsey Buckingham.
- Nicks wishes bandmate Christine McVie, who died in 2022, could have seen the show.
One of the biggest debates surrounding Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel Daisy Jones & The Six is whether it was inspired by Fleetwood Mac—specifically, whether or not Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne were based on Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The answer? Absolutely. The book drew heavily from the real-life band’s tumultuous history, and Nicks herself has weighed in on the comparison. To learn more about what she said, keep scrolling!
A look at how Taylor Jenkins Reid created ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’
Reid first published Daisy Jones & The Six in March of 2019. The plot followed a fictional band called Daisy Jones & The Six during their rise to fame. It was told entirely through interviews and was one of the most popular books of the year. Since its initial publication, the novel has been turned into a hit Amazon Prime TV show, starring Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, something Reid herself called “a trip.”
“From the second [Keough’s] name showed up in my inbox, it was like absolutely yes,” Reid told People magazine in 2023. “For me to create the character of Daisy Jones, and then to watch her be Daisy Jones, it was honestly beyond my wildest dreams.”
Following the book’s publication and the TV show’s release, fans noted how similar some of the storylines were to Fleetwood Mac’s real-life drama. First, you had this band that wasn’t doing too well until a powerhouse female vocalist joined the group. Then said powerhouse female vocalist entered into a relationship with a band member that ended dramatically. And finally, there’s the fact that the book was set in the 1970s when Fleetwood Mac was rising to fame, raising the question of whether or not the fictional band was inspired by the real one.
So, what’s the truth? Reid said the novel is absolutely inspired by Fleetwood Mac. In fact, it was Nicks and Buckingham’s 1997 performance of “Landslide” that inspired her to write the novel in the first place.
“When I decided I wanted to write a book about rock ‘n’ roll, I kept coming back to that moment when Lindsey watched Stevie sing ‘Landslide.’ How it looked so much like two people in love. And yet, we’ll never truly know what lived between them,” Reid wrote in an essay back in 2019. “I wanted to write a story about that, about how the lines between real life and performance can get blurred, about how singing about old wounds might keep them fresh.”
How Stevie Nicks feels about ‘Daisy Jones & The Six’
After it got out that Daisy Jones & The Six was inspired by Fleetwood Mac and Nicks, fans began to wonder how the singer felt about it. Was she mad? Sad? Annoyed? All of the above? Well, as it turns out, Nicks loved the book and the show, saying it was “very emotional” for her.
“Just finished watching Daisy Jones & the Six for the 2nd time. In the beginning, it wasn’t really my story, but Riley seamlessly, soon became my story,” Nicks wrote on Instagram in 2023. “It brought back memories that made me feel like a ghost watching my own story.”
Nicks then went on to say how she wished her former bandmate Christine McVie, who died in 2022 from an ischemic stroke, “could have seen it.”
“She would have loved it,” Nicks added. “Hopefully it will continue…”
Following that post, Nicks discussed the show a few other times. But it wasn’t until a 2024 interview with Rolling Stone that fans really got to discover the singer’s feelings about the show and Keough.
“Riley doesn’t look like me. She’s much snappier than me. I couldn’t be as snappy as her in Fleetwood Mac. Christine and I couldn’t do that, because we were the peacemakers. [Keough] could be totally shitty and a smart ass and totally arrogant, because she wasn’t even in the band, and they weren’t even nice to her. So that was the biggest difference,” Nicks told the outlet. “But as far as her character went, it was very similar to me. And I instantly wanted to call her and meet her, and I did.”
In that same interview, Nicks also revealed that she herself had pitched Reese Witherspoon, who helped produce the show, a potential plotline for Season 2.
“I wish that it could go into what if … had Billy [played by Sam Claflin] come back after Billy’s wife died and knocked on her door, and they decided to make that last record that I always hoped that Lindsey and I would make. That would make a fantastic second season,” the singer said. “I talked to Reese and Riley about it, and they loved the idea, but everybody’s so busy. Riley’s on her way to becoming a big movie star. But maybe one of these days, they’ll do it.”
Daisy Jones & The Six is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.
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