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Courtney Michelle Love (born July 9 1964) is an American rock musician and Golden Globe-nominated actress, best-known as lead singer for the now-defunct alternative rock band Hole and for her two-year marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Rolling Stone has called Love "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."

Controversy

Legal problems

In recent years, Love has faced legal action for some of her more rock and roll behavior:

• In 2003, Love pleaded not guilty to felony drug charges related to possession of painkillers. In February of 2004, an arrest warrant was issued for Love after she failed to appear at a preliminary hearing. The warrant was subsequently rescinded when she appeared in court on February 18. She released her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, just eight days earlier, on February 10.

• Early on the morning of March 19, 2004, Love was arrested in New York City for allegedly throwing a microphone stand and hitting a man on the head. Earlier in the night, appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman, Love stepped up on the talk show host's desk saying "oh, Drew , you've had it", and flashed her breasts at Letterman.

• On her fortieth birthday, July 9, 2004, Love missed a scheduled court appearance relating to an attempted break-in at a boyfriend's house and was found in contempt of court. Her attorney later said she missed the appearance due to medical problems. Later in the month she appeared in court and was sentenced to an 18-month probation and drug rehabilitation program.

• In January 2005, Love regained the custody of her daughter that she had lost in October 2003, after completing a state-enforced rehabilitation program and enduring a probational period. Child welfare authorities alluded to drug addiction when responding to the press on the matter, though they didn't comment directly.

• On February 3, 2005, Love was released from house arrest and issued the following statement: "I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these ninety days... helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me... I've just been playing guitar and taking care of my daughter. I want to to let the community know I'm doing great... I've been really inspired and have remained inspired."

• On August 19, 2005, Love admitted using drugs in violation of her probation terms. She was ordered into a 28-day drug treatment program by a judge who initially said "my belief was that you need to go to the county jail." This program was also violated, and on September 21 she was sentenced to 6 months in lock down rehab.

Cobain conspiracy

Since Cobain's death, conspiracy theories have speculated that he was murdered at Love's instigation. No member of Nirvana or Cobain's family has ever suggested homicide by anyone (apart from Leland Cobain, Kurt's grandfather, who was distant and speculated that the police didn't do their job right and that there may have been a killer); nevertheless, this theory gained media attention with the release of Nick Broomfield's documentary Kurt & Courtney in 1998. Kurt & Courtney featured interviews with, among others, Love's father, and private investigator Tom Grant, who said they believed Love ordered her husband murdered; and also with punk singer El Duce, who claimed that Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. El Duce was, however, a heavy alcoholic and drug addict, and may have had personal reason to accuse Love--he dated Caroline Rue, a drummer from Hole's early days. Neither Hank Harrison nor Tom Grant ever met Cobain while he was alive.) Broomfield declares at the end of his documentary that he does not believe the evidence points to Love being a murderer. But if you go to www.cobaincase.com, the evidence that tom grant provides is very convincing

Other media coverage

Love has often been noted in the press for her behaviour, including cursing at paparazzi and a sometimes physical disagreement with Cobain's alleged former girlfriend, folksinger Mary Lou Lord. Love also received attention when she posed nude for British magazines Q in 2003 and Pop in 2006.

In August 2005, tabloid papers such as News of the World began reporting that Love became pregnant during an affair with British actor and comedian Steve Coogan. Coogan's spokeswoman, alongside Love's publicists, have discredited the story as "nonsense".

Trivia

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles.

• In 2006, Roddy Bottum, Faith No More's keyboardist and Courtney's ex-bandmate, wrote and recorded with her the song "Love, Love, Love" for the film Adam & Steve.

• In Utero, the title of Nirvana's final original album, comes from a poem written by Love.

• Love was cast to star as legendary cowgirl Texas Guinan in the story of her life, called Hello Sucker!. The film was never made.

• There was a late '80s/early '90s Olympia band named Courtney Love, led by Lois Maffeo, that existed before Love's own music career took off. The band released three records on the Kill Rock Stars record label.

• Love is said to having spent close to four years in college, majoring in English at Portland State University, San Francisco Art Institute and Trinity College, Dublin. But the statement seems to be, at least, partially untrue, because, according to the San Francisco's referred college website, it doesn't provide a graduation program in English. This information, allied to Courtney's dysfunctional educational history, including expellings and grade skippings between traditional and alternative schools, make the information less trustworthy.

• In her early career, Love adopted a "kinderwhore" look, which she was accused of having imitated after Kat Bjelland. Love stated that the look was inspired by Christina Amphlett of 1980s rock group Divinyls. Love's style has since evolved toward more sophisticated designer labels.

• Love used to have three tattoos during her early career, amongst two of them are still visible: a vine of four-leafed clovers on her left ankle, and a small letter "K" (which stands for Kurt) on the top of the abdomen. The third one was placed on the right side of her upper back, and it first was an artwork including a star in the middle of a vine, but later changed to a big angel. It seems to have been lasered circa 2004-2005.

• A fan of A Streetcar Named Desire, Love used to check into hotels under the name "Blanche DuBois".

• Love has been a Nichiren Buddhist since age 24, on and off. She allegedly started chanting its mantra Nam-myoho-renge-kyo for quitting heroin, moving from a dreadful place in Hollywood Boulevard, finding a band and a husband. Love is known for having had experiences with Tibetan Buddhism (after reading Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying in the period that Kurt Cobain committed suicide, she gave him a Tibetan funeral, spent two weeks meditating and participating of ceremonies for Green Tara at Namgyal temple in Ithaca, New York, and left part of her husband's ashes for making deity statues named tsatsas) and Baptist Evangelicalism after it, but returned to her original faith in 2005, practicing with the lay organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI), among stars like Orlando Bloom and Tina Turner. Love also was responsible for introducing Hole's guitar player Eric Erlandson to Nichiren Shoshu, the Buddhist branch she used to be part of until late 1990s.

• Love is a yoga-related benefits supporter, and started practicing the kundalini sub-discipline in 1997, with A-list yogi Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, at the Viper Room. She also started practicing ashtanga at about the same time.

• Love was engaged to Edward Norton in the late nineties. Courtney told Spin that she would have been "happier if I married Edward. I'll regret that to my dying day".

Discography

Albums

With Hole

• Pretty on the Inside (1991)
• Live Through This (1994, Platinum)
• Ask for It (EP) (1995)
• My Body, the Hand Grenade (B-sides & Rarities) (1997)
• The First Session (EP) (1997)
• Celebrity Skin (1998, Platinum)

Solo

• America's Sweetheart (2004)
• How Dirty Girls Get Clean (set to March 2007)

Singles

With Hole

• Retard Girl (1990)
• Dicknail (1991)
• Teenage Whore (1991)
• Beautiful Son (1993) UK #54
• Miss World (1994) US Modern Rock #13 UK #64
• Doll Parts (1995) US #58 UK #16
• Violet (1995) US Modern Rock #29 UK #17
• Softer, Softest (1995) US #32
• Gold Dust Woman (1996) US #31
• Celebrity Skin (1998) US #85 UK #19
• Malibu (1998) US #81 UK #22
• Awful (1999) US Modern Rock #13 UK #42
• Be a Man (2000)

Solo

• Mono (2004) US Rock Singles #18 UK #41
• Hold On To Me (2004) US Rock Singles #39
• Letter To God (2007)

Filmography

• Sid and Nancy (1986)
• Straight to Hell (1987)
• Tapeheads (1988)
• 1991: The Year Punk Broke (1992) (documentary)
• Tank Girl (1995) (as executive music producer)
• Basquiat (1996)
• Feeling Minnesota (1996)
• The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
• Not Bad for a Girl (1996) (documentary) (also co-producer)
• Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (1997) (documentary)
• Kurt & Courtney (1998) (documentary)
• 200 Cigarettes (1999)
• Man on the Moon (1999)
• Beat (2000)
• Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope (2000) (documentary)
• Julie Johnson (2001)
• Last Party 2000 (2001) (documentary)
• Trapped (2002)
• Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) (documentary)
• (This Is Known As) The Blues Scale (2004) (documentary)
• Trailer for a Remake of Gore Vidal's Caligula (2005) (short film)
• Lovelace (2007) (announced)

Notes

1. Although some sources give Love's birth name as "Love Michelle Harrison", her listing on the California Birth Index from the Center for Health Statistics gives a birth name of "Courtney Michelle Harrison". Between adoptions from several stepfathers, she also gone by the names "Courtney Michelle Rodriguez" and "Courtney Michelle Menely". The name change to "Courtney Michelle Love" happened in early 1990s, in the beginning of her musical career. According to the same statistics list above, the birth status of Courtney's 1992-born daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, already include "Love" as the mother's maiden surname.
2. Courtney Love Fighting For Custody Of Daughter Frances Bean
3. Courtney Love Regains Custody Of Frances Bean Cobain
4. Courtney Is Cleared, Ready To Rock
5. Teary-Eyed Courtney Love Ordered Back To Rehab By Judge
7. Entertainment Weekly, 1994: The Power of Love
8. Nirvanafreak.net — Articles & Interviews — Endless Love
9. Template:Dlw-inline

External links

• Courtney Love's Official homepage
• Courtney Love All Music Guide Page
• Courtney Love at IMDb
• Full coverage of Courtney Love's legal troubles, from Court TV

• 1964 births
• American actor-singers
• American Buddhists
• American diarists
• American female guitarists
• American female singers
• American film actors
• American singer-guitarists
• American rock singers
• California musicians
• Grunge musicians
• Living people
• Ministers of the Universal Life Church
• People from San Francisco
• People treated for drug addiction
• Punk rock musicians
• Punk rock singers
• Soka Gakkai
• Taper-friendly musicians
• Jewish American actors