<\/p>\n
Hearing the news that Tom Petty <\/strong>died on October 2, 2017 was such a surreal moment. I remember sitting in my office in New York when a screech came from the cubicle down the line. \u201cNO! Tom Petty<\/strong> is gone.\u201d It was just a year prior that we lost Prince, and I remember our office was still in mourning from that. Petty was a deep loss\u2014he\u2019d been in my life since I was born. My uncle was obsessed with him, and I remember as a teen, he shared his sheet music with me when I desperately wanted to learn guitar. (Spoiler: I never caught onto that dream.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s been eight years since we lost him, and so many artists have shared what that loss meant to them. One of the most deeply impacted was, without a doubt, Stevie Nicks<\/strong>. As a longtime fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers\u2014and eventually a collaborator\u2014Nicks recently paid a beautiful tribute to Petty at one of her shows.<\/p>\n In her signature raspy voice, she performed a stunning rendition of \u201cFree Fallin\u2019,\u201d moving the audience to tears. Behind her, images of Petty flashed from his times with her and the rest of the Heartbreakers, and the somber take on the song emphasized just how deeply he\u2019s missed.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was up there singing right along with her,\u201d one fan shared.<\/p>\n \u201cShe brought us all to tears\u2014the whole concert was so good,\u201d added another.<\/p>\n During her show, she also paid tribute to her late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie in the same way, with a collage of photos behind her while performing her hit \u201cLandslide.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: One of the Most Iconic Duets In Rock History Almost Didn’t Happen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The love Nicks had for Tom Petty<\/strong> is well documented. When she began working on her first solo album Bella Donna, Nicks was adamant that she had to do a duet with Petty and his band. It was a pairing Petty was hesitant about at first.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was this absolutely stoned-gone, huge fan,\u201d Petty once told Paul Zollo<\/strong><\/a>, author of Conversations With Tom Petty. \u201cAnd it was her mission in life that I should write her a song. And we were a little wary of Stevie. We didn\u2019t quite know whether to like Stevie or not, because we kind of saw this big corporate rock band, Fleetwood Mac, which was wrong\u2014they were actually artistic people. But in those days, nobody trusted that sort of thing and we just kept thinking, \u2018What does she want from us?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But it was clearly a hurdle they overcame, as the two ended up duetting on \u201cStop Draggin\u2019 My Heart Around\u201d and went on to become close friends.<\/p>\n In fact, Nicks revealed that after her 1994 stint in rehab, she considered him one of her best friends. Feeling down about herself after that moment, she asked Petty to help her write a song. He refused, reminding her that she was one of the premier songwriters of their time<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018Just go to your piano and write a good song. You can do that,\u2019\u201d Nicks once told Rolling Stone. \u201cWhen I walked out of the Ritz-Carlton, I had that feeling that he would be waiting to hear it. The song is called \u2018Hard Advice.\u2019 It ended up on 24 Karat Gold [Songs From the Vault]. The chorus goes, \u2018Sometimes he\u2019s my best friend.\u2019 It was really \u2018Sometimes Tom\u2019s my best friend.\u2019 I changed it because I knew Tom would not want me to say his name. That\u2019s how well I know him.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicks has said many times since Petty\u2019s death that his loss deeply impacted her life.<\/p>\n \u201cI lost one of the last people I could truly talk to\u2026 who understood who I was, and what I stood for,\u201d Nicks wrote in a heartfelt letter after his untimely death. \u201cOne of the only people who truly had my heart and cherished it. A knight in shining armor. My world is just darker since he\u2019s been gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevie Nicks <\/strong>is currently on tour until early December where she’ll end in Hollywood, Florida.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Oct 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hearing the news that Tom Petty died on October 2, 2017 was such a surreal moment. I remember sitting in my office in New York when a screech came from the cubicle down the line. \u201cNO! Tom Petty is gone.\u201d It was just a year prior that we lost Prince, and I remember our office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2071932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[311726,354112],"class_list":["post-2071931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-stevie-nicks","tag-tom-petty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Living-Legend-Stevie-Nicks-Pays-Homage-to-Late-Rocker-With.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2071931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2071933,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071931\/revisions\/2071933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2071932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2071931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2071931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2071931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks<\/strong>‘ Relationship<\/h2>\n