Stevie Nicks thought Harry Styles was in NSYNC

'I’m never gonna to live that one down,' the Fleetwood Mac star joked

Harry Styles and inductee Stevie Nicks pose for pictures at the press room during the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Eduardo MuShow more

Stevie Nicks knocked Harry Styles down a peg or two during a ceremony that celebrated her becoming the first woman to be honoured twice in her career by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

During the ceremony, held at the Barclays Center in New York, she performed four songs, one of which was Stop Draggin' My Heart Around, a duet with the late Tom Petty.

For the occasion, however, One Direction's Harry Styles filled in for Petty, and backstage Nicks spoke about her friendship with the 25-year-old singer - except she got one key detail wrong.

"What I really loved about Harry was that when he decided to make a solo record from NSYNC,” she said, which instantly got a few laughs from the audience. She then realised her mistake, clarifying: "Sorry, not NSYNC, One Direction ... Sorry, I’m never gonna to live that one down, I know that. One Direction. Well, I liked One Direction, too."

The mix-up was laughed off, however, and Nicks went on to say what it is she loves about the young singer, adding: "Anyway, when Harry decided to make a record, he could have gone one of two ways: he could have made a really serious pop record, which would have been much less of a risk, or he could have made a rock'n'roll record and take a risk."

Styles has long been a vocal Fleetwood Mac fan, and of Stevie Nicks in particular. He regularly covers The Chain and has even performed the song with the band.

During the ceremony he revealed that Dreams was the first song he learned all the words to, even though he didn't know what it meant.

"I thought it was a song about the weather," he said.

And it seems the appreciation is mutual. Nicks, 70, claims they have known each other a "long time", despite a 46-year age gap.

"I went to the Troubadour on one of the first nights he actually played songs from that record," she recalls. "It was like this beautiful child should have been born in 1948 too because he just fits in with all of us."