Bikini Assault/Eastern Washington/ July 4, 1995: While backstage at the Gorge on the opening date of the 1995 Lollapalooza tour, Courtney Love punched Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna in the face because of personal reasons ("I think it had something to do with Kurt," says Love scholar Kathleen Wilson). She was not arrested for the crime, but given a criminal citation for fourth-degree assault.
Love O. J. Simpson/Orlando, Florida/ March 14, 1995: During a show at the Edge in downtown Orlando, Courtney Love reportedly dove from the stage and landed on and slugged Robert Lukas, 19, and Ryan O'Donell, 18. Eight months later, Courtney was in an Orange County courtroom wearing, according to local newspapers, "white face powder, bright makeup, and a short black jumper." While sitting at the defense table, Love began looking around the courtroom, which was in the process of jury selection, saying (according to witnesses), "Hey, prosecutors. Psssssst, are you the prosecutors? Can I be O. J. and you be Christopher Darden?" The judge dismissed the lawsuit.
Down Under Crime/the skies of Australia/Jan 25, 1995: While on a Qantas flight across the continent of Australia, Courtney Love was told by a flight attendant that she was "breaching safety regulations" by having her feet in the air against her window. "Your feet are offending passengers," said the attendant. Love turned to the 20 or so businessmen who were sharing first class with her and said, "Excuse me. Are my feet offending anybody?" The businessmen did not respond. The attendant, however, threatened to have Love arrested if she did not bring down her legs and behave like a decent woman. "You are one mean fucking stewardess," Love said. "You are the nastiest stewardess I have met. I think you need therapy." From the Sydney Morning Herald: "Acting on a report from Qantas that a woman passenger had been causing trouble and might be on drugs, police at the airport arrested and strip-searched Love and charged her with 'intimidation of flight crew thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft'--a crime that carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in jail." Two days after she was released from the airport, Love arrived at Broadmeadows Magistrate Court in a limousine, signed autographs, and pleaded guilty to offensive behavior. The court proved to be kind to Love; it only "imposed a one-month $500 good-behavior bond."
Real Punk Love/Los Angeles/April 1998: During a Los Angeles fashion show, a photographer and writer who covers celebrities for the LA Weekly, Belissa Cohen, snapped a somewhat surreptitious photograph of Love while the rock star was posing for another photographer. According to Cohen, Love charged at her, got hold of her hair, and yelled, ''Don't be taking pictures of me! Do you think I'm not still punk rock?'' Love then kneed the photographer in the groin and smacked her face. Cohen, who later sued Love for "assault, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress," said that Courtney boasted to a nearby journalist: ''I just hit Belissa Cohen and it felt so good."
Doctor Feelgood/Beverly Hills/Oct 28, 2002: Today, a report from the Medical Board of California, which was posted on The Smoking Gun's website, charged Dr. Jules Lusman with providing excessive amounts of prescription narcotics to at least eight clients, two of whom were Winona Ryder and Courtney Love. The physician, who is based in Beverly Hills and is no longer permitted to practice his profession in the state of California, was said to be "catering to the demands of wealthy and/or famous drug seekers" and "working on a cash-and-carry basis." The report also stated that Lusman provided his clients with whatever painkillers they needed, sans examination. From The Smoking Gun's website: "In... the medical board report, Love is ID'd as 'Patient C.L.,' a 'fairly well-know[n]' female musician. A footnote indicates that the patient is alternately known as 'Ms. C.L-C,' as she had at one point been married to Mr. C, who had passed away."
Limey Love/30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean/Feb 4, 2003: During a Virgin Atlantic flight from LAX to Heathrow, Love became "verbally abusive" to the flight crew, and at one point is said to have banged on the plane's cabin door. When the jet landed at Heathrow, according to NME, the police arrested Love and placed her in the back of a van parked on the runway. Upon release from Heathrow's police station after almost 11 hours of questioning, Love explained to the British press that she "cussed at a lady named Mary [because] she wasn't letting my friend into first class and I said, 'Why are you being such a bitch about it?'"
The Beginning of the End/West Hollywood/Oct 2, 2003: Concerned that her now ex-boyfriend, Jim Barber, might be doing the nasty with her ex-assistant, Love broke the windows of his home in an apparent attempt to enter it and confront him. Barber's neighbors called the police, and the police arrived and arrested the rock celebrity. This is how Love described the incident in Us magazine: "[I was trying to get into my now ex-boyfriend's place, then] bam! Apocalypse Now! Helicopters, cops, megaphones. It was Die Hard With a Vengeance!" The police took Love to the precinct and booked her for "being under the influence of a controlled substance." Courtney posted the $2,500 bail and was released. Shortly after arriving at her $3.3 million Beverly Hills home, Love, according to Us, called Barber and left this message on his answering machine: "I want to die, I want to jump off the Empire State Building," which might have been a real suicide threat or the lyrics to a new rock song she's working on. It seems it might have been the former rather than the latter, because moments after the call Love overdosed on the painkiller OxyContin while in the presence of her 11-year-old daughter, Frances Bean. As Love recovered at the hospital, the state assumed custody of her daughter.
Beverly Hills Cops/Beverly Hills/Oct 28, 2003 : Courtney Love surrendered to the police, who today had filed two counts of felony drug possession in connection with the night she overdosed; at the hospital that pumped her stomach, Love was discovered to have consumed OxyContin, a powerful painkiller, without a prescription. According to the district attorney's office, Love was booked by Beverly Hills police and was to be arraigned on November 12 in the Beverly Hills Superior Court for being in possession of the very same controlled substance that Rush Limbaugh was addicted to, and is currently recovering from. (Limbaugh had consumed something like 30,000 of these pills over a four-year period without a prescription.)
Retarded Crime/Beverly Hills/Nov 12, 2003: Courtney Love appeared in court on two drug counts. Never one to give in to the force of the law, Love called the charges "retarded," and said, "I didn't even break a law. I didn't even shoplift." A conviction for such a case usually entails either jail time or drug treatment.
Additional research by Jane Berentje.
