Flashback: Madonna, Courtney Love Impersonators Remake ‘Baby Jane’
In the mid-Nineties, the scandalous, messy public persona of Courtney Love was the perfect foil to a much more regal, pre-Evita Madonna. In 1996, famed photographer David LaChapelle took their small feud and transformed it into a modern take on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? for MTV.
In the short clip, grotesque and old impersonators transform into Love and Madonna. The “Vogue” singer is seen chain-smoking and lifting weights while watching an old music video of hers from a wheelchair. Cradling a guitar and wearing a lace babydoll, the Hole frontwoman powders a doll until she’s called into the other room to serve lunch to Madonna. She barges into the room, knocking over Madonna’s TV set.
“You’ve been watching that video for 30 years,” she snarls before serving her foe a live rat. “Maybe you oughta reinvent yourself.”
Love and Madonna went head-to-head just a year prior at the MTV Video Music Awards when Love famously interrupted Madonna’s interview with Kurt Loder by throwing her makeup contact towards them before Loder invites her up to Madonna’s displeasure. At the time, Love had struggled through a series of very public tragedies and drug addiction, and Madonna made a few digs at the rock singer’s drug use during the “joint” interview.