Courtney Love discussed Nirvana’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in a Paper Magazine interview. It was conducted in 2014 but not published online until now.
“This is my family,” she said from the podium that night, before hugging Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, Cobain’s former bandmates who Love has feuded with in the past. “I just wish that Kurt was here.” Love noted that she prepared a speech for that night, but scrapped it at the last second.
“It was really emotional,” Love says of the induction ceremony. “I didn’t want to cry in front of all those people. On the left side of the stage, there were people who were booing me, which was scary. I just thought, Yuck, this is weird. So I didn’t focus on the punters. I focused on the community.”
Former R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, a friend of Love’s for more than two decades, gave Nirvana’s induction speech, and stood by her side onstage as she accepted with Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Kurt’s family. “For Courtney,” Stipe told PAPER via email, “fearlessness was never an issue. For her, it was how to position the power that fearlessness offers, and then to make that power work to everyone’s advantage. That is true evolution, and I believe she has achieved it.”
