The authors and Grant assert that she burned the evidence. Then, at her lawyer Seth Lichtenstein’s request, photos of the death scene remained sealed and inaccessible, though tenaciously sought by independent investigators. Moreover, according to investigative journalist Matthew Richer, her name was redacted from several prior SPD 911 domestic disturbance reports, though Kurt’s was retained. “In the aggregate, the police reports clearly illustrate how Courtney Love successfully manipulated the Seattle police,” he wrote. “By the time the Seattle PD investigated his death on April 8, they were already convinced Cobain committed suicide.”
In addition to all this, a fundamental question remains: if you impartially examine her history, does Courtney Love seem like the sort of person who might conspire to murder a spouse?
Her first punk rock husband, James Moreland, declared that, had their marriage lasted, he would likely have "wound up like Kurt, shoving a shotgun down my throat." According to Wallace and Halperin, Andrew Gumbel, Henrietta Knight, and other writers, Moreland also claimed that Courtney “knew a lot about hitmen,” was “dangerous” and “uncontrollably violent.”
Moreland’s predecessors agreed. Julian Cope, of The Teardrop Explodes, ran a full page ad in NME magazine accusing Ms. Love of “sucking out the brains” of great rock groups, and later explained to Select magazine, “She needs shooting and I’ll shoot her.” Her more diplomatic next boyfriend, Theatre of Sheep’s Rozz Rezabek, called her, according to biographer Melissa Rossi (Courtney Love: Queen of Noise) “my cure for happiness” and “The Black Tornado.”
After Cobain’s death, the widow took up with Trent Reznor. “If she died tomorrow I wouldn’t shed a tear,” the Nine Inch Nails star told Rolling Stone magazine following their break-up and the vandalizing of his apartment detailed by Rossi. “She’s a very evil person.”
“I’m pathologically competitive with men,” Ms. Love told Rossi. Now, like her nemesis Madonna, she calls herself a gay man trapped inside a woman’s body.
But her competitiveness seems equal opportunity. In 1995, the LAPD arrested her for punching Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. "I do believe my fist...met her rathead and it was orgasmic,” Playboy’s Neal Karlen (Love Hurts) reported her boasting. In 2004, she was arrested for assaulting Kristin King, the girlfriend of her ex, Jim Barber. According to Wallace, Rossi, and Karlen, she threatened to cut off the head of Kurt’s ex-girlfriend, Mary Lou Lord, “and shove it up her ass.” Identifying the frail folk singer as one of the five people she wanted to "murder," Ms Love later chased her down Sunset Boulevard, screaming “I’m gonna kill you!”
Article comments
1 - Lisa Blaine
Good article but you didn't represent Halperin and Wallace's book, Love and Death, entirely accurately. They didn't just report that Kurt was leaving Courtney and had removed her from his will at the time of his death. They had a tape recording of Courtneys own lawyer, Rosemary Carroll, who told her private investigator that both Kurt and Courtney were in the process of divorcing and that Kurt had drawn up a new will but that he hadn't yet signed it at the time of his death. They even posted the audio tape online. She also told the investigator that the so-called suicide note was "traced or forged" and that she didn't believe Kurt had committed suicide. This was the godmother of Frances Bean Cobain until she aired her suspicions and Courtney replaced her with Drew Barrymore. Tom Grant also had plenty of other evidence for his accusations against Courtney. This was no simple conspiracy theory.
2 - Lisa Blaine
Good article but you didn't represent Halperin and Wallace's book, Love and Death, entirely accurately. They didn't just report that Kurt was leaving Courtney and had removed her from his will at the time of his death. They had a tape recording of Courtneys own lawyer, Rosemary Carroll, who told her private investigator that both Kurt and Courtney were in the process of divorcing and that Kurt had drawn up a new will but that he hadn't yet signed it at the time of his death. They even posted the audio tape online. She also told the investigator that the so-called suicide note was "traced or forged" and that she didn't believe Kurt had committed suicide. Carroll was the godmother of Frances Bean Cobain until she aired her suspicions and Courtney replaced her with Drew Barrymore. Tom Grant also had plenty of other evidence for his accusations that Kurt was murdered. This was no simple conspiracy theory.
3 - The Man from Last Days
Maxs Wallace and Ian Halperin are nothing but fucking liars. Neither he, Wallace or Grant have ANYTHING to back any of this up.
4 - handyguy
Fascinating. But the author's last name doesn't suit him well!
5 - Kahlid
It's an insult to KC to suggest he did not do it to himself