'''Courtney Michelle Love'''
[Although some sources give Love's birth name as "Love Michelle Harrison", her listing on the ''California Birth Index'' from the Center for Health Statistics gives a birth name of "Courtney Michelle Harrison". Between adoptions from several stepfathers, she also gone by the names "Courtney Michelle Rodriguez" and "Courtney Michelle Menely". When she married Nirvana's lead singer, reports appeared claiming her as "Courtney Michelle Cobain" and "Courtney Michelle Love-Cobain", but there are legal entries between 1995 and 2004 identifying her still as "Courtney Michelle Menely". Court documents and BMI website show that her official name is now "Courtney Michelle Love". ] (born July 91964) is an American rock musician and actress, best-known as lead singer for the now-defunct alternative rock band Hole, and as the widow of Kurt Cobain (1967–1994), lead singer of the band Nirvana. ''Rolling Stone'' has called her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock." Love has one daughter, Frances Bean Cobain (b. 1992).
thumb|right|250px|Courtney Love
Biography
Early life
Courtney Love was born '''Courtney Michelle Harrison'''
, the daughter of Hank Harrison and therapist Linda Carroll (née Risi). Love's mother is writer Paula Fox's daughter, but was given up for adoption to an Italian-American couple, who raised the Jewish-born child Catholic
[http://redsea.blogspot.com/2002_09_15_redsea_archive.html The Absolutely Final Word on Courtney Love—Well, Maybe].
Love's biological family broke up at a very young age. During a child-custody case following her parents' divorce, both Courtney's mother Linda and one of her girlfriends presented letters to the court implying her father had given a 4-year-old Courtney LSD. Harrison denies this allegation and has passed polygraph tests; however, these allegations led to full custody being awarded to Linda Carroll.
Love spent a troubled childhood with her mother as she wandered through four husbands and as many hippie communes in Oregon, various schools (many of which kicked her out) including a boarding school in Nelson, New Zealand. By the time she was a teenager, Courtney was a veteran of reform schools and juvenile halls. At 16, she broke away from her family, got emancipated and traveled around the U.S., United Kingdom and Ireland, living on a trust fund established for her by her mother's adoptive parents. During her time in England, Courtney met and befriended musician Julian Cope--the man to whom, she later claimed, her virginity was lost.
Love's first rock musician boyfriend was Rozz Rezabek, who had an affair with the still-underage Courtney. In her late teens she worked in Japan, Taiwan, Guam and Alaska as a stripper, a job that she would return to at several points in her life before attaining fame. At age 22 she found
