Courtney Denies Addiction
Though Courtney Love faces two felony counts of drug possession,
she insists that she does not have a substance abuse problem.
“I want to make one thing clear right now,” she says in the new
issue of Us Weekly, which hits newsstands this week. “I do
not take narcotics. I have taken prescription pills, and I went to
rehab once. I take Xanax that is prescribed to me, but practically
everybody does that nowadays. But I do not take street
narcotics.”
The charges stem from an October arrest when Love was picked up
for trying to break into the Los Angeles home of her ex-boyfriend,
producer Jim Barber. She tells the magazine that she was there to
pick up a CD so that she could finish some lyrics. “I warned the
neighbor,” she says, “I said, ‘It’s Courtney. It’s going to be a
little noisy for a second.’ Then bam! Apocalypse Now! Helicopters,
cops, megaphones.” Love is still awaiting arraignment on charges of
being under the influence of a controlled substance from the
incident. But after her release that night, she was rushed to an
emergency room and treated for an overdose. Love says that she
mistook the dosage for a prescribed sleeping pill, popping a 20 mg
pill rather than a 2 mg one. “It was the worst experience of my
life,” she says. “It was so painful and embarrassing.”
The most pressing concerns for Love now are the possession
charges, which have the potential for a prison term, though under
the California’s Prop 36 measure, non-violent drug offenders can
enter rehab instead of jail; she’s scheduled for a hearing on
November 12th. There’s also the issue of custody of her child
Frances Bean, who was placed with her grandmother Wendy O’Connor
(Kurt Cobain’s mother) after Love’s arrest. Love says that Frances
is now with Love’s stepfather and sister, and that she has
visitation time every day.
Despite all that is going on, Love is still planning a
late-February release for her solo debut, America’s
Sweetheart.