Courtney Love wants Dave Grohl to end their decades-long feud.
The ‘90s icon, who was married to Grohl’s Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, made candid confessions about her relationship with Grohl in an appearance on Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan‘s podcast. The two discussed fellow musicians and people from the past, including those with whom they have a fraught history.
“Come out with it and just say we’re cool,” Love, 61, said when Grohl came up. “Be man enough to man up, because you’re the Uberman.”
The rock guitarist and singer suggested that Grohl maintains the feud because he is “afraid” to lose his audience, referencing “all the straight males.”
“Dave, it would really behoove me if the straight white males that are your base will stop picking on me,” Love continued passionately. She added that it’s the “millennials” in particular who come for her.
“We’re cool, but you won’t say it because you’re afraid you’ll lose your audience,” Love continued, still seemingly addressing Grohl. “You’re afraid it’ll affect your relationship with literal Paul McCartney.”
In 2012, Love criticized McCartney’s collaboration with the surviving Nirvana members for the ’12-12-12′ Hurricane Sandy benefit concert.
Love went on to say that Grohl does not have the talent of the Beatles’ singer, but that the two share other commonalities.
“They both have the wife—haunting, dark shadow. They both have the cool guy dying—haunting, tragically haunted. So they’re buddies. Is that why?” she asked Corgan.
Corgan, who shares his own complicated history with Love, attested to Love’s claims: “I can confirm that I’ve spent time with you and Dave together, and Dave doesn’t have any issue with you. There’s the stuff that goes on behind the castle walls, and there’s stuff goes out front.”
Love also slammed Grohl, 57, for writing songs about her.
“I couldn’t write a song about Dave Grohl to save my life,” she said. “He’s written like, four songs about me and they’re hits. I’m like, wait what? Like, what about me? I don’t get it.”
Love was married to Nirvana frontman Cobain for two years, until his death in 1994 at age 27. Following his death, Love was embroiled in a tense legal battle with Cobain’s bandmates, Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
Grohl has acknowledged his anger toward Cobain’s widow in the past, when speaking about his Foo Fighters song “Let It Die,“ which many have assumed is about Love and Cobain.
“I’ve seen people lose it all to drugs and heartbreak and death. It’s happened more than once in my life, but the one that’s most noted is Kurt,” he said. “And there are a lot of people that I’ve been angry with in my life, but the one that’s most noted is Courtney. So it’s pretty obvious to me that those correlations are gonna pop up every now and again,” he said of the associations made about his song.
In 2014, Love and Grohl appeared to reconcile when the surviving members of Nirvana were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, embracing emotionally on stage. Grohl later told reporters that it was a “beautiful” moment and that they will always be family.
“We’ve had a bumpy past, but at the end of the day we’re a big family,” Grohl told the Hollywood Reporter, “And when we hugged each other it was a real hug.”
