Courtney Love

Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actress and artist. Love initially gained notoriety in the Los Angeles indie rock scene as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989 with lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. Their debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991) garnered them critical praise, and they went on to achieve international critical and commercial success for their following albums, Live Through This (1994) and Celebrity Skin (1998).

Love also had a career in acting, originally landing small roles in Alex Cox films in the 1980s. In 1996, Love starred in The People vs. Larry Flynt and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. She later had a brief solo music career in the early 2000s after the dissolution of Hole, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and went through several rehab sentences and run-ins with the law until achieving sobriety. In 2009, Love reformed Hole with new members and released Nobody's Daughter (2010). In 2012, she debuted an art exhibit featuring a collection of her own paintings and drawings titled "And She's Not Even Pretty".

Love was married to Kurt Cobain, frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, with whom she has a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Throughout her career, Love's wild stage antics and subversive feminist attitude have polarized audiences and critics, with Rolling Stone once calling her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."