HARRY Styles was the final showstopper at Fleetwood Mac legend Stevie Nicks’ London show last night.
The BST crowd roared in unison in the park and ALL Accor stand when he walked on stage for her hits Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around and Landslide.
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Indie icon Stevie, 76, and boyband star Harry, 30, share a very close bond.
It’s fair to say her music has influenced his sound and eccentric style.
They first met nine years ago when Harry was touring with pop machine One Direction.
And he has the group to thank for his decade of friendship with Stevie.
Stevie’s bandmate, drummer Mick Fleetwood, made the initial connection when he took his young daughters backstage to meet One Direction at one of their concerts.
And it paid off for Harry who would later become the starstruck fan.
He saw his chance at a Fleetwood Mac show in London and presented frontwoman Stevie with a carrot cake for her birthday.
They hit it off and stayed in touch. Years later, Harry recalled inviting Stevie and her friend over to his London home to listen to his yet unreleased album.
“It was pretty crazy,” he told Harold Stern.
“They all came back to the house and they’re so used to living nocturnally.
“They wake up really late and they kind of live through the night — because they’re witches.
“It’s getting to like 3am playing the album, I’m like ‘I’m kind tired’ and they’re right in their prime.
“They’re like: ‘Oh this is like daytime for us!”
“They left at like six,” added Harry.
“I remember them walking outside to get a car and the sun had come up, and I was like, ‘I’m exhausted’.”
The pair became so close that Stevie gave Harry the incredible honour of inducting her into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
Explaining her decision, she told Rolling Stone magazine: “When Harry came into our lives, I said: ‘Oh my God, this is the son I never had.’
“So I adopted him. I love Harry, and I’m so happy Harry made a rock-and-roll record — he could have made a pop record and that would have been the easy way for him.”
Stevie listened to his 2019 record Fine Lines on repeat in lockdown.
“Harry is recounting a lot of experiences that I had in my own life, beautifully,” she said of the album.
“And making me remember stuff, and bringing back memories that I really didn’t love and memories that I did love.
“For me to hear a record made by somebody in his mid-20s that says a lot of things that I haven’t gotten around to saying yet blows my mind.”
Harry’s speech for the Fleetwood Mac icon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame raised a few eyebrows.
During his introduction, Harry said Stevie was: “Everything you’ve ever wanted in a lady, in a lover, in a friend.”
Stevie was also put on the spot over their bond when the LA Times asked her if an older version of Harry would be “her type”.
She teased: “Well… that would be a good thing.”
This Year’s BST Hyde Park Performers
Their performance at BST wasn’t the first time the two have shared the stage.
Harry brought Stevie on stage for one of his shows at the Forum in Los Angeles at the end of 2019.
They also played Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony that same year.
“With Stevie, you’re not celebrating music from long ago through the mists of time,” he said in his induction speech that night.
“She was standing on stage headlining a place doing her best work just three nights ago. She is forever current. She is forever Stevie.”
Harry shot to fame in One Direction as a 16 year old X Factor hopeful.
The boys went their separate ways six years later and Harry entered the world of Hollywood, winning a role in blockbuster Dunkirk.
The song that started his rise to superstardom, Sign Of The Times, catapulted Harry straight to No1 in 2017.
He released his self titled album that year too, and it reached the US and UK charts at number one.
The star has won two Brit Awards, a Grammy, an American Music Award and an Ivo Novello Award.
American Express presents BST Hyde Park continues on Saturday 13 July with headliner Kylie and Ella Henderson, and on Sunday with headliner Stray Kids and Elijah Woods.
Some standard tickets have sold out but ALL Accor experience packages are still available.
Further details on ALL Limitless Experiences, Accor’s free to join loyalty programme can be found here.
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