We didn’t think it could happen, but Courtney Love has once again found herself embroiled in controversy, this time in an extended interview late last year with famed podcast host and comedian Marc Maron. While she had much to say, the headlines all honed in on one topic: Apparently Brad Pitt got Love’s part in “Fight Club” rescinded because she wouldn’t sell him the rights to a Kurt Cobain biopic. In hindsight, she both regrets the decision and doubles down on it. Classic Courtney Love.
Love will likely be eternally remembered (read: vilified) as the widow of Kurt Cobain — but, she is also just kind of a bitch. At least, if you take the words of people she has upset, who synthesized the notion in increasingly unique ways. And after 58 years of life, there are a lot of people who had, or may still have, a grudge against her. There are even some who made art immortalizing her as a result.
Some background first.
This “bitch” was born Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964 in Sacramento, California to her psychotherapist mother Linda Carroll and father Hank Harrison, who was both a publisher and road manager to the Grateful Dead, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. In the custody battle following her parents’ separation, her father was accused of dosing the toddler with LSD. He lost that (custody) battle.
Carroll towed the young Courtney Michelle up the country to Marcola, Oregon. In a 1995 interview with Spin Magazine, she described her upbringing: “There were hairy, wangly-ass hippies running around naked [doing] Gestalt therapy,” and her mother raised her in a gender-free household with “no dresses, no patent leather shoes, no canopy beds, nothing.” She briefly moved to New Zealand with her mother and her third husband, but she quickly sent Courtney Michelle’s ass back to Portland, Oregon to live with her second husband, who had previously adopted Courtney. After a shoplifting conviction at age 14 and a stint at the Hillcrest Correctional Facility, Courtney fell in love with music as a respite from her troubled life. Having been corrected, she was put in the foster care system for one year before leaving to become a topless dancer in Japan and then (after being deported) a stripper in Portland. Here is where we finally meet Courtney Love, who adopted the pseudonym to protect her anonymity during those years.
Love got off to kind of a rough start with music. Front stage at a 1982 Faith No More show, then backstage at a 1982 Faith No More show, then begging to become the lead singer of Faith No More, then becoming the lead singer of Faith No More, then being quickly fired. But they never wrote any songs about her. The lost gig turned our young Love back to topless dancing, this time in Hong Kong, where she said she used heroin for the first time. Love says that same night she scammed a rich businessman for money to fly back to the U.S., but moving on — she’s back. This time she continued taking gigs and developing her sense of music and fashion. The girl was just 19 and propulsed only by her desire to make it.
“You got this thing that / Really makes me hot / You got a lot and more / When you get caught / You got this thing that / Follows me around / You little bitch well / I hope your insides rot” — “Bruise Violet,” Babes in Toyland
When Love met Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland in 1984, she couldn’t play a single instrument. They started a band anyway, eventually breaking up, but remaining friends … acquaintances? People who know each other. The outfit was tied through Bjelland to Love, who would later move to Minneapolis where the band were based. The Babes debuted the song “Bruise Violet” in 1992. They deny that the song and accompanying video featuring the band dressed in Courtney Love cosplay is about the singer, but I don’t buy it. According to what drummer Lori Barbero told The Current magazine in 2015, Love was not pleasant: “She lived in my house for a little while. And I guess [Babes in Toyland bassist] Maureen [Herman] took Courtney to the airport after she stole all the money. She stayed and stayed, and then the next day she wanted me to take her to the airport. And so I drove her to the airport. She had just had some weird fight with the guy at the desk, and then she left. She said, ‘I’m going to go to L.A. and I’m going to get my face done and I’m going to be famous.’ And then she did.”
So that was kind of a dick move. But that is what is so fantastic about Love. As difficult a life as she led, she committed all of her physical and emotional energy towards one thing and got it. She reached fame and more. She had supporting roles in Alex Cox films such as “Sid and Nancy” and “Straight to Hell,” led her band Hole to critical acclaim and four Grammy nominations for “Celebrity Skin,” and she even bagged a Golden Globe for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman’s “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” She also released several solo albums and a series of manga. A true multi-hyphenate. Unfortunately, one of those hyphenates was “deeply problematic woman.” She was a thief, a liar, someone who doesn’t know how not to say something and worst of all, a human. Bummer.
“My god sits in the back of the limousine / My god comes in a wrapper of cellophane / My god pouts on the cover of the magazine / My god is a shallow little bitch trying to make the scene” — “Starfuckers Inc.,” Nine Inch Nails
In Trent Reznor’s defense of the song “Starfuckers Inc.” (penned by Reznor for Nine Inch Nails, allegedly about Love and lyrics altered to play on MTV), in that 1995 Spin Magazine interview, Love said, “Don’t call your band Nine Inch Nails if you have a three inch one.” That doesn’t change the fact that this song’s inclusion on Nine Inch Nails’ 1999 album, “The Fragile,” seems to ride solely on pettiness. Even fans of the band wonder to this day how it fits within the album’s concept. Love and Reznor dated for some time at some point in the 1990s. All that remains clear of their relationship is that it ended bitterly. In Love’s defense, I resent that argument about her. Love fought hard for her place in the alternative community. Hole’s success in comparison to the band’s peers is near unparalleled. Her lyrics resonate with the experiences of women who don’t fit in. Love made quality art that is overshadowed by this association between her work and her love life. Dating Billy Corgan never got anyone a Golden Globe.
“She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak / I’ve been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks / I’ve been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap / I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black” — “Heart-Shaped Box,” Nirvana
Kurt Cobain undoubtedly saw Love for who she was, but he loved her anyway. He says so here, in “Heart Shaped Box,” as he acknowledges her dark side and wishes he could put a stop to it. But what’s implied is that that bitchiness doesn’t define her. Society turned its back on Love the moment that Cobain died, and to a certain extent I can see why she would lose all desire to match its whims as a result. She didn’t even want to before. There are many things I can’t defend Courtney Love for, but being a bitch isn’t one of them. What she has done — as an autistic woman, as a mother, as a widow, as a recovered addict, as any role we choose to stick Love in — is miraculously impressive. Her legacy will live in the generations of women she taught not to give a fuck. In her own words in Hole’s “Miss World”:
“I’m Miss world, watch me break and watch me burn / No one is listening, my friend / Now I’ve made my bed, I’ll lie in it / I’ve made my bed, I’ll die in it”
NOTE: The originally published version of this piece had a typo in the first sentence. It has since been removed.