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Vanity Fair (November 2011)
For much of her life, Courtney Love has been tortured by loss—her husband, her daughter, Frances Bean, who legally emancipated herself in 2009, and now, possibly, her fortune. In the swirl of society balls and fraud allegations, Nancy Jo Sales discovers the controversial rock star trying to let go of the past and find herself.
“Mad? Ya think?! If he came back right now I’d have to kill him, for what he did to us. I’d fucking kill him. I’d fuck him, and then I’d kill him,” 47-year-old Courtney Love shouted at Vanity Fair contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales, asked if she was angry with her husband, Kurt Cobain, for killing himself. “He tried to kill himself three times!” And then there were the drugs. “He OD’d at least five times. I was the fucking E.M.S. I was always sticking pins in his balls. I carried around Narcan!”—a drug used to jolt OD-ing heroin users back to life.
At the singer’s rented West Village town house, Love shows Sales a book from her estranged daughter Frances Bean’s “hope chest.” “This is her diary,” Love explains. “I just want you to look at this one page,” which contains a list titled, “Things That Make Me Smile.” Love, distraught, asks Sales, “Why am I not on it? Why doesn’t she put ‘watching old movies with my mom’?” Frances Bean emancipated herself from her mother two years ago, a decision that is clearly still bewildering and hurtful to Love. “All I can feel is how much I love her,” Love tells Sales. “I’d give anything to hear the sound of her heels walking down the hall past my bedroom.”
The relationship between Love and her daughter has been rough from the start, as Frances was placed in protective custody when she was born. “There were no drugs in my urine, no drugs in her urine when she was born,” Love says. She laments a number of her parenting failures, such as Frances’s inability to read until she was seven: “It was my fault! I never read to her! ... Why didn’t I ever take her to a Broadway show? She fucking loved those Broadway musicals!” There were times when, Love says, her daughter was teased by other children; “They called her ‘crack baby.’” Love also says Frances’s disappointments in show business came early, not just when she didn’t get the part of Sandy in a theater-camp production of Grease, but when agents and producers Love had contacted wanted Frances to do only racy roles. “That’s not who she is. It freaked her out. She wanted a Zoey 101 [the canceled Nickelodeon tween show] or something.”
Frances’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in an e-mail to Vanity Fair that “the statements about [Frances’s] schooling are inaccurate…. The statements about her career desires, theater camp, show business, Nickelodeon, and the scripts are not accurate.”
The “hope chest” sits in Love’s room, among stacks of papers related to “the fraud,” a matter that consumes her attention whenever she isn’t talking about her daughter. Love contacted Sales after reading her January Vanity Fair story on the actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, who allege that they have been defrauded and targeted for murder. “They make me look sane,” says Love. She hoped Sales might help her figure out what had become of her lost Nirvana money (more than $250 million, she claims).
“What’s heartbreaking to me,” says Jonathan Daniel, Love’s music manager, who grows impatient at any mention of “the fraud,” “is that she’s very capable of earning seven figures easy without any help from Nirvana right now, but it’s hard for her to work or for others to want to work with her when she’s so consumed with fraud.” Love’s home, Sales discovers, is command central for research on “the fraud.” Miscellaneous assistants make copies and send faxes related to “the fraud.”
According to Love, the money problems existed even when Kurt Cobain was alive. “We could never find our money!” she says. “We had $135,000 in our bank account. They said that if he would go do Lollapalooza he would make $11 million… Do you think Kurt would have killed himself if he had known he had $54 million?” That figure is based on research done by Love’s Twitter Army, her online fans and believers who are determined to get to the bottom of “the fraud.”
“They won’t be happy till I’m dead!” exclaims Love, of no one in particular.
(Vanity Fair)
Comments
She looks great on the photos
but what a mess of article
She needs to listen to her manger big time!! Let accounts and investigators deal with the fraud cause this is getting enterally tiresome unless it goes to trails or arrests the public don't wanna hear about it she is becoming a mental bag lady joke. Two things she is know for in popular culture today are "killed kurt cobain" and "fruad" get back to the music you have a great band tour make a new record....please
Have to agree with both comments above, the article is awful and undermines Courtney.
I just got the Vanity Fair with the article. I actually thought the article was very fair and sympathetic to Courtney. You might not get that from this excerpt but if you read the whole article you will see it's actually quite fair and balanced. I'm a huge fan of Courtney but I don't think she's perfect. But I don't think she's a total monster like many people on the Internet. That's basically what the writer of the article thinks too. It talks about how she is a brilliant, talented soulful person with a good heart but who has made some big mistakes in her life.
This excerpt on the website is actually quite misleading because it leaves out the more positive parts of the article, makes it seem like the article is sensationalistic and tabloid which it isn't at all.
The pictures are beautiful as well. I suggest that everyone buy the magazine and read the whole article before saying stuff about it. I think the article is a good thing for Courtney and her career.
That vanity fair artical was so heart wrenching. I feel so bad for her and i hope her and frances can work it out on day.
thanks for posting that. I will go buy the magazine and read the whole article.
Thanks Glinda for this; I really didnt like the excerpt, it was like there'd been a few comments made by Courtney, probably put out of context and extended into a sensationalist article to make it look like some kind of interview. I too am a massive Courtney fan, but like everybody else she isnt perfect and is the first to say this (unlike many other people). Alot of the media and other areas of the internet are like broken records about her.
Have to say I'm really hoping for more music. Nobody's Daughter is played almost daily in my car.
The article is definitely messy... I hope she finds some solace. Also liked the pictures posted above.
@Glinda - Thanks for the tip, I will look for it!
@MishkaKat - Courtney seems somewhat repetitive on certain issues too, which only feeds the media more. Sometimes I think she just can't help herself. I don't mind her neurosis, but I would like to see more focus on music and career too... She's had great things, she HAS something great in her possession... Run with it! I'm sick to death of hearing about her and Nirvana money... I makes me frustrated for the soul reason that was stated by her manager -- She doesn't NEED it, she could dedicate herself to her work and make her own money if she can just keep her head above water.
Thanks summernights4ever. I agree with everything you said. One thing Courtney has going for her is she has a music manager who will tell her the truth. Let's hope she listens to him. A lot of celebrities just surround themselves with yes people who never tell them the real deal or where they are making mistakes. But luckily Courtney isn't like that.
This Vanity Fair issue is a must have. Not only does it have Courtney, but it also has interview with Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine. Two of my favorite artists in the same magazine. Unbelievable!
I didn't like the way the interviewer was heading in this excerpt and I hope this article doesn't make Courtney look like a nut. Can only assume that Courtney had the final say about what was printed. that short Vanity Fair film was lovely though.
anyone who has the issue want to type it out or scan it for the rest to read? really want to read more than the excerpt.
it would be greatly appreciated!
thank you.
Excellent !
Thanks Glinda & Summernights4ever. Yeah I have to admit to also getting frustrated; sounds like she has a supportive manager, which is positive. She really doesnt need the Nirvana and money stuff & maybe should have more faith in herself, I'm not sure. She is one talented and intelligent woman, a positive model in this world of size-0 barbie dolls who conform to meta-society's expectations.
The photoshoot is great, very subtle and tasteful.. but could anyone post the scans, please? Vanity Fair is not that widely available ( especially outside the US and UK
)
yes, i agree. i cannot GET vanity fair where i am - so will someone please, please post the scans to the interview?
it would be appreciated and i thank you in advance!
will someone please scan the article??
Click here to read the full interview.
Thank you so much for the link!
can you tell me if this is in the uk or usa edition?thanks
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