Courtney Love (Part 2)

Published Aug 26, 2021, 7:02 AM

After the death of her husband Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love struggled to cope. She faced brutal attacks from the media and those close to her. Many believed she would self-destruct in an endless cycle of drugs, criticism, and rock and roll,however, Courtney made her way back to the top. Find out how and much more in Part 2 of Courtney Love’s story behind the music.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

She was one of rock music's biggest stars and one of its most controversially. Courtney Love came up through family turmoil and found herself alone as a teenager, but her tenacious dry led her to the stage. Courtney fell in love with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, and along with their daughter, they became rock's royal family until tragedy struck. The couple struggled with drug use and constant media attention, prescendo into Kurt's tragic suicide. This is the story of Courtney Love behind the music. Hi'm Kurt Loder with an MTV News special report on a very sad day. Kurt Cobain, the leader of one of the rock's most gifted and promising bands, Nirvana, is dead. Cobain's body was found in a house in Seattle on Friday morning. He was dead of an apparently self inflicted shotgun blast to the head. On April eight, or Courtney Love was in an l A rehab center when she got news of her husband's suicide. Courtney, her daughter Frances, and her nanny Jackie immediately flew to Seattle and into a media circus. Courtney was asleep on one side and Francis is asleep on my other side, and I was wide awake, just thinking like what am I gonna you know, what are we gonna do? I mean, it was just so beyond what any of us thought was going to happen. It was not supposed to be the end of the movie. This is a Seattle house where Kurt Cobain had lived until a few months ago. I stayed with Courtney, and when we have the TV on, we look out the curtain and see ourselves looking up the curtain. It was awful. Awful. Courtney not only had to deal with her own grief, but also that of millions of fans who desperately wanted answers. The way he died affected everybody. It was a shame that went over the whole entire music scene. It was like this icy depression that hit you the moment you heard the news. Two days after Kurt's body was found, a public memorial was held in Seattle. While Courtney was devastated, she felt it was important to address Kurt's fans, reading excerpts from his suicide note in a prerecorded message. She's an amazing person. I don't know how she keeps going sometimes, but She knew at that time that she was going to be expected to make statements on it and to be of comfort not just to her but to his family and play that role which nobody wants to play. What I saw Courtney do is step into her power. It was unbelievable. She mourned big time after the service. I remember there was this gathering that Courtney said, I want to speak to These are our people. They have a right to know. And Courtney was so powerfully beautiful. Yeah, it was. It was amazing to see her. She actually was showing his suicide note to fans, talking to people, weeping, crying, lighting candles. It truly was one of the most extraordinary public displays of grief you will ever see in your life. But while Courtney was putting on a brave face for the public, privately she was relying on drugs to ease the searing pain of her loss. She was numb, she was she was a mess. I was really really worried about her. She was so thin. Drug dealers are coming over bringing her drugs most of the time. She was so sedated that I don't know if she can tell she sad or what. I was taking copious amounts of prescripture, mostine, but abusing it, and I wanted to get obliterated for the first time in my life and probably the last. She had smoke in bed and go in and out of this paralysis to the point that people put fire extinguishers all around, like in every corner of the house. Why wasn't I taken to a brievement counselor even given a recommendation for one? You know, why didn't I? I didn't know to go to one. There was all these people coming by the house, and she was giving things away, and like I wanted to say, like, don't give all the stuff away now, because you're going to regret it later, which I think happened. She was in a state. Cartney gave me Kurt's watch when I went out to take care of her. It means a lot to me. The biggest tragedy in Courtney's life occurred at a time that should have been her biggest triumph. Just a week after Kurt's death, Holds major label debut, Lived Through This was released to near universal praise. The album was called Lived Through This, How'd that Happened? And the album's brilliant and important and the world needs to hear it. The songs were an eerie window into Courtney's now very public pain. It's like, I'm not psychic, but my lyrics are. It's very pressent because I'm really open and I allow like almost automatic writing. Captain Lived Through This is just a dynamite album. These are taught songs. The lyrics are truly an extension of her diary. They are themes of alienation and angst and self questioning. It was Courtney, there was no pretense there. That was absolutely her bearing her soul. The album made countless best love lists, but just as Courtney was finally being recognized for her music, her detractors jumped at the chance to take her down, spreading rumors that Kurt wrote much of the record. There's that myth that Kurt wrote a lot of our songs. It's not true. I mean, Eric and Courtney wrote Lived Through This. I interviewed every idea associated with that record, and they all told me that universally Courtney Love wrote those songs. If Kurt had written on and I just said something he didn't, that's all just offends me. So I don't mean to be defensive. It's like you're being a dick like I would tell you. As if that wasn't enough, accusation surface that Kurt was murdered and Courtney was behind it. The private detective once employed by Courtney Love to find her late husband Kurt Cobain, has now come out and charged that Cobain did not commit suicide eight months ago, it was in fact murdered. Even her own father, a strange from Courtney for years, joined in the accusations. Yeah, that really was out she That really was horrifying, And then I just got used to it. People from all different walks of life actually asked me if Courtney killed Kurt, and I'm just like, Courtney didn't kill Kurt. I know for a back because I was with her. Two months after Kurt's death, tragedy struck again wholes basis. Kristen Faff was found dead of a heroin overdose. I'm on the phone with Sophie Miller, the video director, and we're talking about the next video and Eric calls me seven am and he's like, she's dead. She's dead, She's dead. I'm like, who the fox dead. He's like, Kristin dead. In about them, I'm like I clicked back on the phone like, so if you have to go, my bass players dead, And that was just like fucking great, really great. Wow, you know, is it ever gonna end? Hits just keep fucking coming. She was a great base where a great friend. It just sucked. She lost a major part of her band, she lost her husband. She truly lost direction, I think in her life at that point. It was really really bad. So you know, how do you move forward? How do you move on from that? And I think the decision was let's just take it slow and go. She had Francis to live for, and I think at that time that was the biggest thing that fall. With New Basis, Melissa Off Tamar Whole hit the road to support their platinum selling album Live Through This. What followed was a series of emotionally charred shows. Now We're part Therapy, part eulogy, Ocur and Kristen incompletely legendary. It was tough to just continually try to push those feelings away. Certain things would remind her, and a lot of times on stage it would come out certain lyrics would have a lot more meaning. It was too soon to try to do anything besides like hold her head up. I hate that fucking play I was tor managing them, and I had to like physically help her get on stage, and then she was still play like really awesome show. She was performing on a stage as a front person when everyone in the audience has been subjected to these horrible things in your life. I'm surprised she was able to go through with as much as she went through. While on tour with Nie n Inch Nails for the aptly named Self Destructor, Courtney became romantically involved with Trent Resner. Trent denied it, even as rumors swirled that Courtney was pregnant. Me and Trent how to kind of torrid whatever you want to call it. And then he said in details that my alleged pregnancy would have an immaculate conception. So I said in spin that don't call your band nine inch nails if you have a three inch one my fans called hole. It's not called little hole. It's not called big hole. It's not called flapping, non is not called teeny Rosebud, it's not called Barbie pussy. It's called hole. Okay, he still mad at me about dude. That was the nineties. What the fun, vulnerable and still grieving Courtney was becoming increasingly unraveled. The pressures of her life after Kurt had become overwhelming. There was the record, there was her career. There was Kurt's estate. There was the other members of Nirvana, There was Kurt's family. There was such an orbit of hazy problems. It was still a very raw time for Courtney, which a lot of people took advantage out. Courtney was self medicated, relying on prescription pills, heroin anything to ease the pain. I took a lot of drug called hypnop I was asking somebody, why does the ra Hypnots did bad rap? And they said global memory laws. Well, that's what happens when I meet somebody and I don't know if I hate them or liked them or what, but I know that I did something that I fust come. I don't know through hypno coming up, Courtney falls hard When behind the music continues. In a haze, Courtney began to lash out at anyone and everyone. In January, she was arrested for offensive behavior on a flight from Australia, and just a month later she was arrested again for punching two fan ends at a show. Can You See Me on the Front base of the Orlando Sentinel, going like this, I have big fits, and you know, I've been known to get in a brawl or two. And that was one of the lowest periods of my life. Was going to Orlando, Florida. I'm thinking I was going to jail. In July, she punched bikini killed lead singer Kathleen Hannah in the face at Lollapalooza. Then in September, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Courtney famously traded barbs with Madonna. It's also Ali Courtney, any come on up, Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now. She's throwing her compact at me. It was a crazy, bitter sweet time for her in her career, and it felt really sketchy whether or not she was going to be able to pull herself out of that. I'm really okay. I'm probably is always getting into trouble and hell, but it's like projection. It's just about projection. It's like someone's gotta be the big funk up right, not you. Courtney seemed on the verge of complete self destruction. Ever, the survivor, she managed to pull herself together and in landed her biggest break ever, she snagged an audition for the biopic The People Versus Larry Flint. When the Larry Flint script came around, it was all about, this is what's going to happen, because this is the role of a lifetime, which she knew. Courtney was after the role of Larry Flint's wife, Althea, a stripper and drug addict who contracts Aids came for an interview. She entered the room. She was high as a kite. But after a few minutes I realized, you know, she's an original loaf. Will play the bar when Columbia Exects initially said no. Two time Academy Award winning director Milos Foreman took out a million dollar insurance policy on her that included regular drug testing. I called Courtly and don't have If you'll give me a word that do you stay absolutely under present, glean and we will not betray me. I will find for you. Milush made me give him my word that I would never do Heroin again, and I did. I trusted her. I believe I went to rehab just to do the twelve step thing and do the twenty days. But I never did Heroin again. And I did know drugs on the side of that film, The Gamble paid Off The People Versus Larry Flint premiered in December, the glowing reviews and earned Courtney a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was magnificent and I was so proud. I felt that she had really turned a corner and come to the place where she wanted to be. She was really kind of embraced by Hollywood. She kind of had her life back, her resurrection complete. Courtney moved to Los Angeles with daughter Frances and began dating Larry Flint co star Edward Norton. Edward was a solid good guy. He's very much into character. We did a lot of character building. Courtney's relationship with Edward Norton was probably the greatest, most stabilizing influence in her life and was great for Frances and was great for anybody around Courtney. At the time, the girl, once known for her tattered baby doll dresses and smeared makeup was gone. Courtney was now an A list Hollywood fashion plate with a new cleaned up image. The l A lifestyle gave her plenty of new material for holes next album, Celebrity Skin, a record that found her moving in a much more polished commercial direction. That record was about celebrity, and it was about Los Angeles. It was her love letter to Los Angeles that reflected her host hurt energy, but sort of moving into this better place. People in wanted me to make a WHI record. I'll be damned if that's what I was going to do. She turned to old flame Billy Cordon to help with songwriting. Billy wrote this great theme song. I hated that riff. I hate it. I still made it to this day. I love the rest of it because I wrote the rest of it. Billy said, trust me, they will be doing this, and he was right. Released in September, that critically acclaimed Celebrity Skin went platinum. Just four years after Kurt's death, Courtney was back on top. I worked my ass off on that record. I turned down serious movies to do that record. I'm really glad that I did. Here was somebody who her whole life had been looking for some kind of external recognition that what she had created artistically was of something of merit, and that was her career highlight. To this point, Courtney Love was riding high on the success of Hol's third album, Celebrity Skin, and a revitalized film career, including role in Man on the Moon and two Hundred Cigarettes. But beneath her glossy new surface years of emotional turmoil. We're finally catching up with her. Everyone wanted me to be a fancy movie start, and that was a rocket where you just go boom straight up. Little The rockets shakes like rockets, do parts fall off like rockets do boom? Meant chance that you're gonna have a safe landing is pretty much nothing. The stress would ultimately sever her relationship with actor Edward Norton and went out with him for four years, but it was engaged to him for about six months of it, and I would have hated to be, oh my god, Mrs Norne needs to be Gourney love. It wasn't stabilizing. It was the nightmare. And we're so much better as friends. But Courtney's problems were just beginning. By two thousand two, she was locked in a lawsuit with Kurt's former bandmates over control of Nirvana's catalog and suing her own record label over holds contract. I think courtn as her own worst enemy at times, and the early two thousand's were kind of a lost weekend. She had troubles again with substance abuse. She had troubles with financial dealings. The band was not what it was, so she was a little bit adrift. At the same time, tensions between Courtney and Whole guitarist Eric Erlinson had taken a bitter and irreconcilable turn. I just felt like Eric wasn't progressing. I felt like his heart wasn't in it. I was just done. Haul broke off because Courtney and Eric fought they were a duo and they weren't working anymore. There's a code of honor, and the code of honor is don't think it. So when you're phoning something in, it feels like shit. A simple message on Hole's website marked the official end of the band, and in the summer of two thousand three, Courtney started recording her first solo album, Pulled Up in a French chateau. She had other motives too. I just wanted to be at Chats over six Cindy drugs, so it was just an excuse to do that. As addiction progresses, you try different combinations, and at that point I think it was cocaine. I've tried pretty much every drug there is, and that was that's one of the gnarliest. When Andrew instantly as the cock once again, Courtney found herself in the grip of addiction, and it wasn't long before her personal life completely fell apart. In October two thousand three, she was arrested for allegedly breaking into the home of Jim Barber, her ex boyfriend, producer and manager. Just hours after being released on bail, she was treated for an overdose of OxyContin, one that occurred in front of her eleven year old daughter, Frances. Courtney was really disconnected and really upset and really depressed, and there was a concern that she had made threats against herself. Days later, her management staged in intervention, calling in the l a p D. To force Courtney into a mental hospital after she threatened suicide. I was told that they were doing a psychiatric intervention on her, which is different than a drug intervention. And I showed up to be of support, and then the next thing I knew, everyone disappeared and it didn't seem right. I mean, this is very real. Ship. They tried to get me to go to the Nighthouse in l A. When there was nothing wrong with me. The police treated her so rudely. They were like, where is that whore? We don't want people like that in our neighborhood. It was ridiculous. And then they handcuffed her and they handcuffed me, and you know, it was just crazy. Two weeks later, l A Children's Services removed Frances from Courtney's custody. History was repeating itself. The courts wanted someone to take custody of Frances because they felt Courtney wasn't in a position to do that. So I went down to Los Angeles and I became her legal guardian for those eighteen months. It was a dark time and her personal life was in a bad, bad place. To make things worse, In February two thousand four, Courtney's solo album, America's Sweetheart was released to tepid reviews and dismal sales. First of all, I dedicated my worst record to Hammocrow and the scientologist, like that's so much I was on drugs out. There were so many different hands on that record, and that was her first attempt at writing music without Eric, and there was no real coasive sound. It's not about the failures song Stock, Courtney herself called the album Les disaster. It seemed her life was headed down the same path, coming up drugs, legal bills, and Courtney returns to the stage when behind the music continues. While Courtney was spending a small fortune on drugs and legal bills, she believed millions of dollars belonging to her and Francis had been embezzled from their accounts. And my most hardcore drug abuse came in oh four, and that was because of financial crazy. I found out how much my estate is worth, it how much courtses date, which is my estate is worth, and I saw a vast discrepancy in the amount of money that was coming in. She was hiring all these special investigators to find out people were stealing money from her, and everybody was telling her she was paranoid, but she was like, no, I can prove it. And I believed her it was embezzled at that time, and um, it drove me insane. As the tenth anniversary of Kurt's death approached, Courtney suffered a very public meltdown. I saw a different kind of craziness, craziness that wasn't the no Courtney appeared on The Late Show in March and flash Dave Letterman. Later, during an infamous trip to Wendy's, she was photographed with a stranger sucking her breast, and that same night, after her solo show, she was arrested for allegedly hitting a fan with a mic stand. You're gonna see what happens. It was really scary. Unfortunately, I was with her a lot of that time, and it was really hard, and things were just clearing from bad to worse. It's like somebody's going to like throw a bottle at hers and throw a bottle bath. It's horrible to watch Courtney struggle with addiction because you think she's smarter than that, she's better than that, and the fact that she's so self destructive is horrible. Wis and then Courtney's forty birthday with paparazzi lined up outside her New York loft. Call reported a suicide attempt. You know, I was in bad shape, but I was sitting in my apartment. Someone called and said that I was on Lenny Kravis's roof and I was going to jump. I'm not going anywhere. I don't care what condition I'm in. I'm not going anywhere. Paramedics rushed her to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, where she was held for seventy two hours observation. They took me to Bellevue. It was horrible. I didn't need to see seventy two hours of that ship. I was trying to get in touch. I couldn't get in touch. I was talking to her lawyer, as I was talking to her drug counselors. She had enough going on. She didn't need to be in Bellevue. My mother flew out and trying to make me stay there. And I mean my mother, who hasn't seen me in two billionaires, trying to make me stay there. I didn't need her help. I needed her to stay away. So seven two hours up and all I could think about was this, just this. When I finally got to see her, I had like a carnal cigarettes or something because she hadn't smoke in three days, and I was so excited. I smoked it in the ambulance home. I was like, or like, you need to put that secret out, man, I'm like, fuck you. After another stint in rehab, Courtney regained custody of her daughter Francis, but her recovery wouldn't last long, taught, she relapsed quite publicly in the summer of two thousand five. I've had problems coping and say doing mortifying drugs or insane like Pamela Anderson grows. What was that? You know what I mean? I made some really huge mistakes. Just gasps. The grunge goddess who had created three of the most compelling albums of the nineties, it is now facing the prison for violating probation. I could feel her disconnection. I could feel her kind of at the end of a rope and hitting a bottom when you started to get into sort of a surrender, like Okay, I have an addiction that I can't control and I need help. In August of two thousand five, Courtney Love finally hit rock bottom. The only Times called me a tattered mattress. But aside of the freeway, the years of chaos and drug abuse had caught up with her. After three drug related parole violations, she was sentenced to lockdown rehab. I was in rehab for ninety days. It was really good for me. I hate admitting it, but I am too thin skinned to ever handled cocaine. There's no way It's really challenging to be able to have that moment of clarity where you can just say this is happening to me, and I accept it, and I'm willing to try to do something about it. I'm the first one to say I'm powerless and I'm an at it, you know what I mean. I I tripped the wire and I made myself that way. Courtney checked out of rehab a sober woman, confident that she could turn her life around. Over the next five years, her resolve would be tested as she struggled to track down the money she claims was embezzled from Cobain Trust. The stress left her frazzled and dangerously thin. But through it all, Courtney is proud to claim she stayed clean. Given what I've been through, no fucking way. I'd rather fucking die than fucking take drugs. No way. Courtney is a very powerful human being, and that's part of her work, her battle with her addiction. I was out in the wild for a real long time, no, and I put myself out there. There's no one else. I have no one to blame from the last ten years except for myself. Courtney. Love is never strayed far from controversial, from angry rants on Twitter through her very public battle to remain involved in her daughter's life. I have my narcissistant moments, and I have my moments where I'm more obsessed with the money being stolen than i am with the care of a teenager, which has been a real problem because I can't do everything at once and there's not two parents, so it sucks. I do not question the amount of love that Courtney has for Francis. As with many of us, the impact of our love isn't always what we wanted to be. In the spring of two thousand ten, she hit the road for holes first album in twelve years, Nobody's Daughter, her take on greed, vengeance, and motherhood. I am Nobody's daughter so much Francis and Nobody's daughter. It's just the Swagger manifesto, which is really my Valentine to my daughter, because she's a tough motherfucker longawaiste. Every song on this record is for her. Courtney Love is proving to her fans and her critics that she's back, this time for good. I have to finish this rock thing out. I'm not done. Courtney's talent for songwriting and lyrics have been minimized or overshadowed by the persona. She's a poet beyond the scope that I think she's recognized for. She needs to be in a studio on the road creating music. That's what Courtney Love is great at. And there's almost nobody when she's on that's as good as her. I feel really good to be me. I think it's a good time to be me. You know. I take a lot of ship. I keep on ticking. Okay, Courtney's about survivor. She just has that in her and the price she has paid to develop that level of strength, I believe it's been huge, and it's it's remarkable. It's heroic rock and roll and real rock and roll. No one fakes it. You want to live the dream. You do what you want on your term. It's just a matter of authenticity and meaning it. I mean it. Courtney Love is still rock's favorite dirty block in. She was honored at the Enemy Awards with the Icon Award, named one of Alternative cultures most influential singers of the last thirty years. Corney has continued to push her creative energies with forays into fashion and a return to acting with roles and hit television programs including Sons of Anarchy, Revenge, and Empire. Courtney Love continues to inspire a new generation of musicians, especially young women and girls. She's left her mark on music and continues to grow her legacy. Listen to Behind the Music on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Want more episodes, you can watch remastered best of the Vault and new episodes Behind the Music only on Paramount Plus

MTV’s Behind the Music

MTV’s Behind the Music is back! The groundbreaking music documentary series returns with the best of 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 32 clip(s)