Courtney Love Called Her 2004 Solo Album One Of Her “Great Shames” Along With “Steve Coogan And Crack”
Courtney Love has gone through many phases: Kurt Cobain’s messy wife, Kurt Cobain’s grieving widow, baby doll dress rock star, glam Hollywood good girl, and cracked out chaos demon. Now, Courtney says she’s been sober for a couple of years now, and she’s been doing a lot of self-reflection on Instagram. Yesterday she posted a picture of an anonymous “happy Australian” smoking a cig and cruising around in a car adorned with the cover art for Courtney’s 2004 solo album, America’s Sweetheart. In the caption, Courtney writes that the album is one of her life’s “great shames”, along with dating Steve Coogan and getting addicted to crack. These three shames all occurred around the mid-2000s, a time Courtney says was filled with “sloppiness, men, money, drugs, nightmare…”
Here’s the Instagram post:
Courtney has long shit on her solo 2004 solo effort. She and collaborator Linda Perry refer to it as “le disaster”, mainly because Courtney was deep in the throes of addiction. She admits that when she flew to the South of France to finish the songs, “I just wanted to be in a château for six months and do drugs.” And in her legendary Behind the Music, she said, “I dedicated my worst record to Cameron Crowe and the Scientologists. Like, that’s how much I was on drugs.” America’s Sweetheart bombed commercially and reviews were meh.
As for Coogan? They briefly dated in 2005 (via the Independent):
“All it was was a couple of shags at the Sunset Marquis [hotel] and I did not know he was Alan Partridge,” she told Love Magazine. “I had never seen Alan Partridge. But I was in a band with people who did know about Alan Partridge, so I had to make a record with them constantly saying to me: ‘Back of the net!’”
Back when Owen Wilson attempted suicide in 2007, Courtney publicly blamed Steve, who she says was a bad influence, and took Owen’s drug use to the next level. Steve has since admitted he did a lot of cocaine for a very long time.
The America’s Sweetheart era was indeed very very messy. Here’s Courtney “promoting” the album on Letterman in 2004. You may recall this appearance. It’s the one where she paid homage to her dear friend Drew Barrymore by flashing Dave, shit-talking Nicole Kidman, and asking, “Am I being weird like Jennifer Tilly?”:
2004 was also the year Court showed up barefoot to a Wendy’s and flashed her boobs for the camera. Yikes. Stay off crack, kids!
Pic: Wenn.com