Courtney Love has praised her “really good friend” Lana Del Rey, who let her live in her house for a year “rent-free”.
The Hole frontwoman made the remarks on The Magnificent Others podcast hosted by Billy Corgan, where she spoke effusively about the singer. Love and Del Rey previously toured together, with Love supporting Del Rey on her Endless Summer shows in 2015.
“I’m friendly with Lana Del Rey,” she told the Smashing Pumpkins frontman. “In fact, I would call us really good friends, and she put me in her house in Malibu for a year rent-free – like what the hell?”
Love continued to say that Del Rey was “really great at helping me get out of town because I needed to get out of the life. She’s got this upper-middle-class thing as well, so she could play these guys that were really harming my life.”
Finally, Love said Del Rey was “a fantastic girl and a real friend,” adding: “She’s done things for me that nobody has ever done in our business, particularly another woman.
Del Rey has previously expressed her fondness for Love, telling NME in 2015 that the pair shared “some things in common that might not be visible from the outside.”
Love would return the favour when the pair teamed up to interview each other for Dazed in 2017, sharing that her favourite Del Rey song was ‘Blue Jeans’. She would also name Del Rey and former partner Kurt Cobain as the only “true musical geniuses” she’s ever known, explaining: “by that I mean they can Spielberg anything”.
However, Love seemed to have changed her mind in 2024, criticising Del Rey in an interview with the Evening Standard. “I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off,” she said, referencing Del Rey’s 2023 cover of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’.
Despite this, she would still name Del Rey as a “dream collaborator” by the end of 2024, adding: “I’d love to co-write a song with Lana Del Rey – I’d like to be ‘Paul’ and go hard on choruses while going back to ‘Norman’ and go hard on choruses, or whatever.”
In the same interview with Corgan, Love shared her frustrations about “gatekeeper” Kim Gordon.
Love claimed Gordon was “really horrible in the ’90s”, adding: “I remember in Holland I was hanging out with you and they were so mean.” Corgan replied with his own anecdote, telling Love: “I was a fan and I came in to pay my respects and I was treated so rudely by them.”
Gordon has spoken of her dislike for both Corgan and Love in the past, writing in her 2015 memoir Girl In A Band: “I have a low tolerance for manipulative, egomaniacal behavior, and usually have to remind myself that the person might be mentally ill.”
“Courtney asked us for advice about her ‘secret affair’ with Billy Corgan,” Gordon wrote later in the book. “I thought, ‘Ewwww,’ at even the mention of Billy Corgan, whom nobody liked because he was such a crybaby, and Smashing Pumpkins took themselves way too seriously and were in no way punk rock.”
Love also called out Dave Grohl to “just say we’re cool” on Corgan’s podcast, adding that his fan base of “straight white males” should stop “picking” on her.
