| Midwife crisis Pregnant for the last time? In This month�s Vanity Fair, Courtney Love has at last confirmed the drug rumors surrounding both herself and husband Kurt Cobain. And much more controv stuff besides. ROGER MORTON brings you the juicy bits. NME 22 August 1992 COURTNEY LOVE, lead singer with the US femcore grungers HOLE, has revealed astonishing details about her personal life and marriage to NIRVANA�s KURT COBAIN in this months edition of the upmarket international magazine Vanity Fair. Following months of speculation about the couple�s drug problems and persistent denials from Cobain that he is addicted to heroin, Love admits in the article that the pair went on a drug �binge� earlier this year. Love, pregnant at the time with the couple�s first child, says that the drug phase started in January while Nirvana were in New York to appear on Saturday Night Live. �We did a lot of drugs,� she says. �We got pills and then we went down to Alphabet City and Kurt wore a hat, I wore a hat, and we copped some dope. Then we got high and went to SNL. After that, I did heroin for a couple of months.� The Vanity Fair article quotes close friends of the couple as being �appalled� that Love would be taking drugs while she knew she was pregnant. �We are all worried about the baby,� says one friend. A business associate who was traveling with Love and Cobain at the time says: �It was horrible. Courtney was pregnant and she was shooting up. Kurt was throwing up on people in the cab. They were both out of it.� According to Lynn Hirschberg, who interviewed Love in Los Angeles for the piece, Courtney was encouraged to have an abortion after her period of drug use. The singer decided, however, to go ahead with the pregnancy after having extensive medical tests that indicated that the fetus was healthy. Jimmy Boyle, a friend of the singer who works for the Def American label, claims to have helped Courtney kick her drug habit by bringing herbs to her house �so she wouldn�t freak out so badly.� However, fears about the couples lifestyle still persist. Several sources report that Courtney and Kurt went to separate detox hospitals in March, although neither of them appear to have completed their clean-up programme. Love, who married Cobain in Hawaii this February, admits to Hirschberg that �it was a bad time to get pregnant and that appealed to me. Besides, we need new friends.� The provocative singer revealed to the NME last December that �sometimes I really hate being in a band, because sometimes I just wanna have babies, honestly! I just wanna move to a small north west town and breed.� Love, who complained in the December 14 NME feature that people were too ready to assume that her lyrics for Hole, portraying a disturbed, nihilistic character, were autobiographical, allegedly joked with reporters at Nirvana�s June Irish shows that she was chain smoking because she wanted a small baby. The Vanity Fair article confirms speculation that Nirvana have come close to splitting up this year and reinforces the theory that Love�s relationship with Cobain was having a divisive influence on the band, who were already feeling pressured by the scale of their success. Love, who according to Hirschberg has a history of heroin use going back to when she was 18, including snorting the drug in the Chelsea Hotel room where Sid Vicious�s girlfriend Nancy Spungen died, had repeatedly been blamed for allegedly introducing Cobain to heroin. �He tried to be an alcoholic for a long time,� she says in Vanity Fair. �Bit it didn�t sit right with him.� Cobain�s Nirvana colleagues, drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Chris Novoselic, have reportedly been antagonized by Love, who refused to let Novoselic�s wife attend her wedding. A source close to the band is quoted in the Vanity Fair profile accusing Love of leading Cobain and having �a hidden agenda�. At one point she suggest to Cobain in front of Hirschberg that he should �start a new band without Chris (Novoselic).� Meanwhile, reports coming out of Seattle maintain that Cobain is already working on a solo project with a musician called Robin, a member of local band Sybil. Novoselic and Grohl are said to be dissatisfied with Cobain�s persistent ill health. The Vanity Fair report states that Love resorted to religious chanting to �capture� Cobain, who she first met in Portland Oregon eight years ago, when she was starting out on her rock career. The former stripper moved on from small acting parts, including an appearance as Nancy Spungen�s friend in Alex Cox�s Sid and Nancy to fronting bands, including an early incarnation of Faith No More. Love played alongside L7�s Jennifer Finch and Babes In Toyland�s Kat Bjelland in a briefly flowering San Francisco band Sugar Baby Doll before returning to LA and forming Hole in 1989. With one independent album behind them, �Pretty On The Inside�, issued through Caroline Records last August, Hole became the object of major label attention towards the end of 1991, coinciding with Love�s much publicized pairing up with Kurt Cobain. Although Madonna�s new label Maverick expressed interest in signing Hole, a deal did not materialize. Love remarks in Vanity Fair that: �Madonna�s interest in me was kind of like Dracula�s interest in his latest victim�. She goes on to say about Madonna: �I didn�t want to get involved with her because she�s a bad enemy to have. I don�t want her to know anything about me, because she�ll steal what she can. What I have is mine, and she can�t f-in have it.� Hole eventually signed to Geffen, the same label as Nirvana, in a million dollar deal which Hirschberg claims is a bigger and better deal than Nirvana�s. Recent reports, however, indicate that Hole�s previous label, Caroline, is attempting to maintain a contractual grip on the band. Talking to Hirschberg about her elevation to gossip-worthy major label status, Love says: �Now I get a chance to prove myself. And if I do, I do. If I don�t-hey, I married a rich man!� Rumors emanating from Love herself, that the singer is to appear in the next movie from Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) are yet to be confirmed. However, as former band-mate, Babes In Toyland�s Kat Bjelland warns in Vanity Fair: �Only about a quarter of what Courtney says is true. But nobody usually bothers to decipher which are the lie.� The final twist in the tale: the cigarette that Courtney was holding in Michel Comte�s remarkable photo of the heavily pregnant singer was removed by Vanity Fair prior to publication. |