Skip to main content
▶ WHOPLAYSNOW
Courtney Love

Courtney Love

Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years. Born to countercultural parents in San Francisco, Love had an itinerant childhood, but was primarily raised in Portland, Oregon, where she played in a series of short-lived bands and was active in the local punk scene. After briefly being in a juvenile hall, she spent a year living in Dublin and Liverpool before returning to the United States and pursuing an acting career. She appeared in supporting roles in the Alex Cox films Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987) before forming the band Hole in Los Angeles with guitarist Eric Erlandson. The group received critical acclaim from underground rock press for their 1991 debut album, produced by Kim Gordon, while their second release, Live Through This (1994), was met with critical accolades and multi-platinum sales. In 1995, Love returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which established her as a mainstream actress. The following year, Hole's third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), was nominated for three Grammy Awards. Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s, appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon (1999) and Trapped (2002), before releasing her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. The subsequent several years were marred with publicity surrounding Love's legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album. That project became Nobody's Daughter, released in 2010 as a Hole album but without the former Hole lineup. Between 2014 and 2015, Love released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire. In 2020, she confirmed she was writing new music. Love has also been active as a writer; she co-created and co-wrote three volumes of a manga, Princess Ai, between 2004 and 2006, and wrote a memoir, Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love (2006). Description above from the Wikipedia article Courtney Love, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known for

Broken English
Broken English
2026 • Self
Antiheroine
Antiheroine
2026 • Self
James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
2023 • Self (archive footage)
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
2023 • Self (archive footage)
Meet Me in the Bathroom
Meet Me in the Bathroom
2022 • Self (archive footage)
Kalvøyafestivalen - 50 år siden første riff
Kalvøyafestivalen - 50 år siden første riff
2021 • Self (archive footage)
Arianne Phillips: Dressing the Part
Arianne Phillips: Dressing the Part
2021 • Self
The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault
The AGFA Mystery Mixtape Vault
2020 • (archive footage)

Full filmography

James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
James Blunt: One Brit Wonder
2023 • Self (archive footage)
View movie
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
I Hate Myself and I Want to Die
2023 • Self (archive footage)
View movie
Meet Me in the Bathroom
Meet Me in the Bathroom
2022 • Self (archive footage)
View movie
J.T. LeRoy
J.T. LeRoy
2019 • Sasha
View movie
Menendez: Blood Brothers
Menendez: Blood Brothers
2017 • Kitty Menendez
View movie
The Young Blood Chronicles
The Young Blood Chronicles
2014 • The Head Bitch In Charge
View movie
Trapped
Trapped
2002 • Cheryl
View movie
Beat
Beat
2000 • Joan Vollmer Burroughs
View movie
Man on the Moon
Man on the Moon
1999 • Lynne Margulies
View movie
The Righteous Babes
The Righteous Babes
1998 • Self (archive footage)
View movie
Feeling Minnesota
Feeling Minnesota
1996 • Rhonda the Waitress
View movie
Basquiat
Basquiat
1996 • Big Pink
View movie
Hole: MTV Unplugged
Hole: MTV Unplugged
1995 • Lead Vocals, Guitar
View movie
Hole: Violet
Hole: Violet
1995 • Herself
View movie
Tapeheads
Tapeheads
1988 • Norman's Spanker (uncredited)
View movie
Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy
1986 • Gretchen
View movie
The Long Home
Unknown year • Pearl
View movie
Courtney Love – Biography, Known For & Filmography