Courtney Michelle Love Courtney Michelle Harrison
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Courtney Love, born Courtney Michelle Harrison in 1964, formed the band Hole in 1989 and married Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in 1992. After Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Hole’s album Live Through This became a critical hit. Love earned a Golden Globe nomination for her role in The People vs. Larry Flynt 1996.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Courtney Love — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Courtney Love by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Courtney Love — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
The daughter of Grateful Dead associate Hank Harrison and psychotherapist Linda Carroll, Courtney Love arrived in San Francisco in 1964. She spent her early years in hippie communes in Oregon and attended schools in Europe and New Zealand.
By age 16, Love became legally emancipated and traveled through Europe on a small trust fund left by her grandmother. She returned to Portland, Oregon, still pursuing music, before moving around the US to launch her music career.
In 1989, Love formed the band Hole, releasing their debut album Pretty on the Inside in 1991. She married Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain in 1992, and gave birth to their daughter Frances Bean Cobain that same year. After Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Hole released Live Through This, which became a landmark album.
Love moved into acting, earning a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Althea Leasure in The People vs. Larry Flynt 1996. She later starred in films like Trapped 2002 and appeared on TV shows including Empire 2015. In 2004, she released her solo album America’s Sweetheart, and in 2009, she reformed Hole with a new lineup for Nobody’s Daughter.
Love married James Moreland in 1989, but the marriage lasted only months. She then married Kurt Cobain on February 24, 1992, and their daughter Frances Bean Cobain was born later that year. After Cobain’s suicide in 1994, Love had high-profile relationships, including with actor Edward Norton from 1996 to 1998.
A custody battle over her daughter defined Love’s personal struggles. In 2003, she lost custody due to drug charges, but regained it in 2005. She suffered a miscarriage during the filming of Trapped 2002. Love has been open about her plastic surgeries and her use of electronic cigarettes to quit smoking.
Courtney Love’s frontwoman role in Hole helped define the alternative rock and riot grrrl movements of the 1990s. Her album Live Through Is often cited as a classic, and her performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt earned critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination. Hole was ranked #68 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll.
Conspiracy theories about Kurt Cobain’s death have dogged Love, but she remains a significant cultural force. Yves Saint Laurent appointed her a spokesmodel in 2013. Her book Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love 2006 provides insight into her life.
A wall of memorable lines from Courtney Love — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
I’m Not a Woman, I’m a Force of Nature.
I’m Not Going to Hurt Anybody Other Than That Dick Who Keeps Writing Songs About Me – About Dave Grohl in a Howard Stern Interview.
“You’re No One in the Rock Industry Unless You’ve Feuded with Me or Slept with Winona Ryder.
If I Write a Song About Being a Teenage Prostitute, That Doesn’t Mean That I Was a Teenage Prostitute, Any More Than It Means Kurt Raped Polly.
Drugs Have Nothing to Do with the Creation of Music. in Fact, They Are Dumb and Self Indulgent. Kind of Like Sucking Your Thumb.
I Surrounded Myself with Women When I Was Growing up Because I Had This Horrible Psycho Father. Now I’m Trying to Really Appreciate and Like Men More.
I Think Andy Kaufman Is to Comedy What the Velvet Underground Was to Music- It’s Like, 80 Thousand Records Sold, but Everybody Who Bought One Started a Band.
If You Treat a Girl Like a Dog, She’s Going to Piss on You.
I Am Just the Classic Person Who Wants to Learn Stuff. I Want Good Tutors, and with Kurt I Had the Best.
There’s a Kind of Appeal in Vulnerability, and There’s an Appeal in Sort of a Quantum Vulnerability, Where You Really Are Exposing Something. It’s Like, a Haha, What Are You Gonna Do? Kind of Thing. Yeah, Come Here, Screw with Me, I’m Only, Like, Hanging Upside Down on a Cross.
How Can Any Woman Be the Female Jim Morrison? What Jim Morrison Was Was a Sexual Object. Women – We Invented Rock and Roll, and Sexualized Men so That We Could Go and Scream at These Unattainable Football Captains.
I Wanted to Be Something When I Grew Up, and I Grew up in the ’70S. What Was I Gonna Be, a Movie Star? Movie Stars Say Other People’s Words. a Writer- I’m Undisciplined. a Rock Star- That’s What I Wanted to Be When I Was a Kid.
Every Time You Buy a Nirvana Record, Part of That Money Is Not Going to Kurt’s Child, or to Me, It’s Going to a Handful of Jew Loan Officers, Jew Private Banks, It’s Going to Lawyers Who Are Also Bankers.
Little-known facts about Courtney Love — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
At age 12, she was rejected from The Mickey Mouse Club after reading a Sylvia Plath poem for her audition.
Godmother of daughter Frances Bean Cobain is Drew Barrymore.
The songs Doll Parts, Best Sunday Dress 1998 version, Dying, Northern Star, Malibu, Playing Your Song, Honey, and Pacific Coast Highway are about Kurt Cobain, her late husband.
The Nirvana song Heart-Shaped Box is about her.
On January 11, 2005, an LA court ruled she could regain custody of her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. She lost custody to her mother-in-law in October 2003 as a result of drug charges.
Her legal name since February 24, 1992, has been Courtney Michelle Cobain, though she uses the name Courtney Love professionally.
She wore an antique silk dress that had once belonged to actress Frances Farmer to her wedding with Kurt Cobain.
In October 2003, she lost custody of her daughter after her arrest in Los Angeles on cocaine and illegal-prescription drug charges. Court officials placed 11 year old Frances Bean Cobain into the custody of her paternal grandmother, Wendy.
She took ballet as a child through her teens and has had extensive surgery done on her feet due to injuries.
On October 20, 2004, she pleaded guilty in a NYC court to disorderly conduct for striking a concert-goer, Gregory Burgett, in the head with a microphone during a concert. She was ordered to pay $2,236 in medical expenses, attend a drug-treatment program, remain drug-free, and commit no crimes for a year.
According to her mother Linda Carroll, her stage name originated because Linda called her Courtney, love as a child.
No evidence supports the rumor that Kurt Cobain was in the process of divorcing Love at his death. The two had been living apart immediately before his death due to Cobain touring with his band Nirvana, and later, after Love staged an intervention to convince Cobain to check into a drug rehab program. When Cobain escaped from the rehab facility, Love had investigators track Cobain down, but by the time the singer was located, he was already dead.
After a lengthy audition process, she beat out actresses Liv Tyler and Meryl Streep, among others, for the role of Lady Macbeth in a filmed version of Macbeth to be directed by Luc Besson. After several production delays, the film was never made.
She gargled whiskey while recording Pretty On The Inside to give a raw edge to her vocals.
She was linked romantically to Edward Norton from 1996 to 1998.
She is a skilled ballerina, and her dance abilities can be seen in The People vs. Larry Flynt 1996 and in a music video for Hole.
The 1994 Metal Edge Readers’ Choice Awards voted her Best Female Performer, upsetting Lita Ford, who had previously won the title seven years in a row.
She dedicated Hole’s My Body, The Hand Grenade CD to her late husband Kurt Cobain and former Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff, who died of a heroin overdose.
She was in the early weeks of pregnancy during the filming of Trapped 2002 but miscarried.
Love suffered a miscarriage. She refused to name the father.
She has admitted to having extensive plastic surgery on her face and body.
She auditioned for the role of Nancy in Sid and Nancy 1986 but was given the small role as Gretchen instead.
She is good friends with Winona Ryder.
The songs Hold On To Me, Plump, I Think I Would Die, and Heaven Tonight are about Frances Bean Cobain, her daughter.
In 1998, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins helped produce the album Celebrity Skin.
She credits NJOY electronic cigarettes with helping her to give up smoking. Love had smoked three packs a day for almost thirty years and had tried repeatedly to quit. After switching to the electronic cigarette, she rapidly reduced her smoking to only half a pack a day and hopes to eventually give up the habit altogether. Appropriately, NJOY hired Love as their spokesperson.
She desperately wanted the role of Satine in Moulin Rouge! 2001, which eventually went to Nicole Kidman.
Her mostly female band Hole ranked #68 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll.
She lost legal guardianship of her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Kurt Cobain’s mother, Wendy O’Connor, and sister, Kimberly Dawn Cobain, were appointed legal guardians.
She was arrested at Heathrow airport in London for disorderly conduct on an aircraft flying from L.A. She was given a caution. She had flown to London for a performance at The Old Vic Theatre.
She beat out Angelina Jolie for the lead role in Lovelace 2008, though the film spent so long in development, Love eventually was replaced by Lindsay Lohan.
Love’s biological grandmother is children’s author Paula Fox.
Along with Kim Elson and Marilyn Manson, Yves St. Laurent appointed her as a spokesmodel for their 2013 fashion collection designed by Heidi Slimane.
Though the band denies it, she insists she inspired the song Crush With Eyeliner that appeared on the 1990s R.E.M. album Monster.
She released her solo album America’s Sweetheart in February 2004.
She is a distant relative of Douglas Fairbanks her biological grandmother was his cousin, through Douglas’s mother’s side.
Nightlife columnist Belissa Cohen sued Love for assault, battery, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress resulting from an incident involving Cohen’s attempt to photograph Love at an LA fashion show.
On February 10, 2005, an LA court gave her three years probation after she pled no contest to attacking a woman at her ex-boyfriend/manager’s house. Although accepting the plea, she maintained she did nothing wrong.
Her band Hole was part of the Riot Girl movement in the ’90s.
She is mentioned in the song You Only Get What You Give by the New Radicals.
She turned down the role of Madison Lee in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle 2003 because she didn’t want to perform any stunts.
Alex Cox gave her bit parts in two of his films, Sid and Nancy 1986 and Straight to Hell 1987, starting her movie career.
She was a member of the band Sugar Babylon.
Love was on tour with Hole at the time of her husband Kurt Cobain’s suicide. However, she remains the subject of a conspiracy theory that he was murdered and many suspect Love was the perpetrator.
On May 24, 2002, it was announced that Love’s band Hole had broken up.
Courtney’s biological maternal grandmother, Paula Fox, was born in New York, to Paul Hervey Fox, who had British Isles ancestry, and Elsie de Sola, who was a Cuban immigrant, of Spanish descent. A DNA test taken by Courtney indicated that her biological maternal grandfather was Ashkenazi Jewish.
She ranked #67 on VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists.
She released her book Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love.
She is the great-granddaughter of screenwriters Elsie Fox and Paul Hervey Fox.
The book Courtney Love: The Real Story by Poppy Z. Brite was released.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Courtney Love.
Celebrities similar to Courtney Love — same craft, ranked by reach.
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