Watch Stevie Nicks make triumphant return to Saturday Night Live after 41-year absence

Long-running US comedy show Saturday Night Live is currently celebrating its 50th season, and after kicking off the new series with guest appearances from Jelly Roll and Coldplay, episode three saw a real legend join the cast in New York: Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks .

In a show hosted by pop star Ariana Grande, Nicks sang her recent single The Lighthouse – a track inspired by the controversial overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 legal decision that deemed abortion bans unconstitutional – and Edge of Seventeen , the third single from her 1981 debut solo album Bella Donna.

“I wrote this song a few months after Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Nicks said when The Lighthouse was released last month. “It seemed like overnight, people were saying ‘What can we, as a collective force, do about this?’

"For me, it was to write a song. It took a while because I was on the road. Then early one morning, I was watching the news on TV and a certain newscaster said something that felt like she was talking to me — explaining what the loss of Roe v. Wade would come to mean. I wrote the song the next morning and recorded it that night.

“That was September 6, 2022. I have been working on it ever since. I have often said to myself, ‘This may be the most important thing I ever do.’ To stand up for the women of the United States and their daughters and granddaughters – and the men who love them. This is an anthem.”

Nicks' performance on Saturday Night Live was her first on the show since 1983 when, shortly after completing her Wild Heart tour, she sang Stand Back and Nightbird .

Elsewhere in the latest episode of SNL , a painfully unfunny sketch saw cast members Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman play a bickering Noel and Liam Gallagher via a bewildering array of inaccurate regional accents. The sketch was greeted less-than-warmly by Liam.

Singer/songwriter Paul Simon has graced the SNL stage more times than any other act, with 14 appearances, followed by Foo Fighters (11) and Coldplay (10).