Grunge rock icon Courtney Love is no fan of Taylor Swift.
In a recent interview with Britain’s The Standard, Love — the former singer for the platinum-selling band Hole and widow of Kurt Cobain — took a swing at multiple pop divas, including Madonna and Lana del Rey, letting it be known with typical Courtney Love directness that she doesn’t hold them in high regard.
Love saved some of her strongest criticism for Swift — the woke billionaire pop princess recently named TIME Person of the Year and continually generating headlines for her romance with NFL star Travis Kelce.
“Taylor is not important,” she said. “She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.”
Courtney Love interview: 'Taylor is not important. She might be a safe space for girls, and she’s probably the Madonna of now, but she’s not interesting as an artist.’ https://t.co/0qc9Hq6Wsb pic.twitter.com/MBomBzqkK0
— The Standard (@EveningStandard) April 12, 2024
Love’s beef with Madonna is clearly more personal in nature.
“I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me,” she told the newspaper. “I loved Desperately Seeking Susan, but for the city of New York as much as her.”
As for Lana de Rey: ‘I haven’t liked Lana since she covered a John Denver song, and I think she should really take seven years off.”
Love was promoting her recently launched BBC radio series called “Courtney Love’s Women,” in which the former Hole singer shares music by the female artists who have inspired her throughout her life
Her diss of Taylor Swift diss comes as Swift’s media exposure reached supernova levels after she was anointed People magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year. She also became an NFL fixture — all the way to January’s Super Bowl — thanks to her relationship with Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce.
Swift has yet to endorse a presidential candidate for the 2024 race, having previously endorsed Joe Biden back in 2020.
The singer would presumably have to weigh the damage a repeat Biden endorsement would do to her personal brand at a time when the 81-year-old president is facing record-low popularity, especially among young Democrats, millions of whom have soured on his presidency.
Courtney Love addressed her long-standing reputation as a force of nature in her interview with The Standard.
“People used to say that I was so difficult,” she said. “They said I was disagreeable. Yes, I am completely disagreeable and I’m never going to apologise for that. I always wanted to be known as a bitch.”
She continued: “Being liked was never my thing. Kurt [Cobain] wanted to be liked but not me. He was able to hide behind me, but then I got hated. Then Kurt died, and the hatred towards me reached a completely new level. I did not plan for that.”
“I’m all for taking my wiener out on stage, like Jim Morrison did. If I had a wiener and I was drunk enough, I would have totally taken it out, just like Jim. I had a bitch capacity and I was cool with not being liked. I saw Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back and he didn’t want to be liked and I thought, yeah, I want to be like that.”
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