Courtney Love

Courtney Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison on July 9, 1964 in San Francisco, California) was the singer for the now-defunct band Hole. Currently in and out of rehab and on the verge of losing custody of her daughter, Love is also an occasional model and actress. Love is the widow of Kurt Cobain (1967–1994), lead singer of the band Nirvana, with whom she has one daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

Musical career and marriage

Love began her professional music career with a brief stint as the lead singer of Faith No More in the early 1980s. About this time she also played in an all-female pop-rock band called Sugar Baby Doll with Kat Bjelland and Jennifer Finch. None of their Bangles-influenced material has ever been released. Love had more early success as an actress, appearing as the best friend of Nancy Spungen in Alex Cox's Sid Vicious biopic Sid and Nancy in 1986, and in Cox's Straight to Hell in 1987, as well as some small roles on television episodes.

Related Topics:
Faith No More - 1980s - Kat Bjelland - Jennifer Finch - Bangles - Nancy Spungen - Alex Cox - Sid Vicious - Biopic - Sid and Nancy - 1986 - Straight to Hell - 1987 - Television

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Returning to music in her adopted hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Love claims she co-founded the all-female rock band Babes in Toyland with Kat Bjelland, but this is denied by others; acrimony between Love and Bjelland led to Love's quick exit from the band. The bands biographer claims she stole house reciepts to a Butthole Surfers concert. In 1991 Love formed her own band, Hole. The band's debut album garnered little critical or popular attention in the U.S but was celebrated in the influential British alternative music press. Already a star in England, Hole's fortunes improved considerably following Love's marriage to Cobain and the publicity following Cobain's death.

Related Topics:
Minneapolis, Minnesota - Babes in Toyland - Kat Bjelland - Butthole Surfers - 1991

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Unpopular with some Nirvana fans (comparisons to Yoko Ono were made early on and persist to this day), Love's image was further tarnished by a 1992 article in Vanity Fair entitled "Strange Love" in which she admitted to using heroin in the early stages of pregnancy. As a result, Child Welfare Services briefly investigated the Cobains' fitness as parents. Love claims to this day that she was misquoted, saying she had told author Lynn Hirschberg that she had stopped using once she learned she was pregnant.

Related Topics:
Yoko Ono - 1992 - Vanity Fair - Heroin - Pregnancy

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She was often ridiculed in the press for her abrasive, sometimes erratic behavior, such as cursing at papparazzi and publicly harassing Cobain's former girlfriend, folksinger Mary Lou Lord.

Related Topics:
Papparazzi - Mary Lou Lord

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Shortly before the release of Hole's breakthrough album Live Through This in April 1994, Cobain committed suicide. Love read his suicide note at a televised memorial a few days later, sobbing hysterically and alternately cursing her husband as a "fucking asshole" and pleading with him to come back.

Related Topics:
Live Through This - 1994 - Suicide - Suicide note

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Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a drug overdose two months later. She was replaced by Melissa Auf Der Maur later that year.

Related Topics:
Kristen Pfaff - Drug overdose - Melissa Auf Der Maur

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