Courtney Love recently touched down in Australia for her first-ever solo tour of the country, and as always, a little controversy followed right along. The rocker kicked things off by revealing that she spent nearly AU$29 million of “Nirvana money” in the years following Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide.
Speaking to News Corp‘s Sunday Style magazine (via NME), the widow of the legendary grunge frontman revealed that she was forced to spend a good portion of the fortune left to her by Cobain settling various legal disputes, maintaining a seemingly nonchalant attitude about the expenditure.
“I lost about [US]$27 million – I know that’s a lifetime of money to most people, but I’m a big girl, it’s rock ‘n’ roll, it’s Nirvana money, I had to let it go,” said the former Hole frontwoman, who has been in and out of court for much of the ’90s and ’00s, defending and pursuing various lawsuits.
“I make enough to live on, I’m financially solvent, I focus on what I make now,” she said of her current financial situation. Love claims that despite burning through the exorbitant sum, her priorities have always been defending Nirvana’s legacy and not capitalising on her late husband’s name.
Love reportedly told Sunday Style that she’s “protected” the group’s legacy from exploitation by “everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials to movies about board games,” adding, “We’ve been offered $6 million for 18 seconds of one Nirvana song and I turned it down.”
Love’s sentiments were similar when she finally confirmed that her band, Hole, would not be reuniting, despite persistent rumours. Love implied that a reunion would be tantamount to “selling out” and said, “I don’t want to get on the oldies circuit. I don’t need to do that for money.”
Watch: Courtney Love – You Know My Name
