The Bad Penny (beta)

Much like news headlines about the goon in the White House, stories that appear in the press about Courtney Love often reveal she has managed to sink even lower, causing more collateral damage to other people and continuing to shock a benumbed nation into deeper states of catatonia, exasperation and hopelessness.

The latest Love update comes courtesy of Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum, who briefly dated her in the ’80s and just released his first memoir earlier this month. Titled The Royal We and revolving heavily around Bottum’s decision to come out of the closet way back in 1993, the 275-page read contains many anecdotes and vignettes of the front woman of her on-again, off-again band Hole.

Back in the good ol’ days, Love and husband Kurt Cobain used to rail against prejudice, misogyny, corporate greed, overconsumption and America’s addiction to consumerism. But after the couple’s halcyon days were cut far too short due to the couple’s heroin use (which Love has denied), it didn’t take long for them both to plummet back down to earth in shambles.

Love’s short-lived romance with Bottum, who subsequently stepped out of the closet, occurred in 1984, around the same time she was briefly a member of Faith No More. As Bottum told The Bad Penny in an interview conducted 10 days ago, his band was not without its own behind-the-scenes conflicts.

“There was definitely a heightened sense of drama when Mike Patton joined the band [in 1988],” Bottum said. “We were in Australia once, and some kid handcuffed herself to Mike. That kinda blew my mind. But that was a real heightened sense of ‘star factor,’ you know? Like, who does that? I’ve seen that happen to, like, Grace Jones. When I was a kid, we went to see her in the summer, and someone in the front row handcuffed her to her ankle. [It] struck me as just insane. And then it happened, and it was wild.

Not as wild as Love, though – and maybe not as wild as this anecdote that Bottum imparted

So many things happened with that person in my live that I can’t even … there’s so many [stories]. I remember being at an airport with Courtney and Frances, and she said … [He laughs.] It doesn’t even translate, but she said [in a hushed voice], “You know, they steal children in places like this.” And I’m realizing as I say it aloud that it doesn’t really translate, but it was one of those bizarre things [that provoked me to reply.] “Wait, what are you saying?”

Mostly I think kids are pretty respectful and compassionate. It’s fun to see kids get excited in the context of up in the audience. I remember a lot of times barriers would get broken in the audience because of their fervor of getting close to the band. That really is just flattering, more than anything.

Stay tuned for a far more extensive and in-depth interview with Bottum in the coming weeks, or perhaps mere days. The Bad Penny will tip off you, dear readers, as soon as we learn what the publish date will be.

This entry was posted on 11/18/2025 at 7:26 am and is filed under News with tags Courtney Love, Faith No More, Hole, Kurt Cobain, Mike Patton, Roddy Bottum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.