Courtney Love Cries in Court Over Mishandling of Kurt Cobain’s Memory
Courtney Love broke down in tears yesterday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, where she is being tried for libel. She began sobbing, according to Spin, during the testimony of Canadian businessman Phillip Gross, who detailed how he purchased a guitar from one of Kurt Cobain‘s former guitar techs that was said to have belonged to the Nirvana leader. However, Gross later learned it was a fake. At that, the sometime-Hole frontwoman reportedly shielded her face, gasped and began bawling, ostensibly aghast at how her husband’s memory has been treated in recent years.
Where Does Hole’s ‘Live Through This’ Rank Among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time?
Love is currently the subject of the first-ever trial for libelous tweets. Testimony began last Wednesday. In 2010, the Twitter account @CourtneyLoveUK posted a tweet alleging that Love’s then-lawyer, Rhonda Holmes, had been “bought off” when Holmes chose not to help the singer in a lawsuit against the managers of Cobain’s estate, according to ABC News. Gross testified yesterday because he said he had reached out to Holmes about the matter but she never got back to him, corroborating Love’s claim that Holmes had “vanished,” as Spin reported.
Love’s is the only Twitter libel case to make it to trial – three years ago, Love paid a $430,000 settlement to a fashion designer with whom she was feuding on Twitter, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Its outcome could set the precedent for similar cases in the future.
When Love took the stand on Wednesday, she said that her tweet was merely opinion. She also thought she was tweeting at two people only. Holmes’s lawyer, Mitchell Langberg, told the TV station KABC-TV, however, that it was a damaging statement regardless who read it. “‘Bought off’ means somebody got to [Holmes], somebody paid her a bribe,” he said.
Holmes testified yesterday that she had “absolutely not” received any such bribe, nor had she completely disappeared. In another day of testimony, Holmes said, according to Spin, “I admired her very much. I thought she had accomplished a lot in terms of her acting career. She was very articulate, very bright.”
Love cried previously during her trial when answering a question about how important the well-being of her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was to her. She said tearfully, “It’s the most important thing.”