Courtney Love Says She ‘Almost Died’ in Harrowing Health Battle

Courtney Love said this week that she came dangerously close to dying during a private and punishing health ordeal in 2019, sharing the revelation in a candid Instagram post.

The 62-year-old musician, who has spoken publicly about getting sober after past struggles with cocaine, heroin and pills, did not disclose the specific illness behind the medical crisis.

Describing the severity of what she endured, Love said her “body just exploded,” setting off a frightening decline that left her losing all of her hair and dropping to about 100 pounds despite standing nearly 5-foot-10.

Even as doctors warned her that she was going to die, Love said she resisted believing them. “Somehow,” she wrote, she eventually pulled through and is now “healthy.”

Love, the daughter of couples counselor Linda Carroll and Grateful Dead tour manager Hank Harrison, suggested her distrust of medical professionals was rooted in childhood experiences, saying it stemmed from lies she felt adults told her when she was young.

The grunge-era star, who rose to global fame in the 1990s as Hole’s frontwoman and as Kurt Cobain’s wife, has not released a studio album since 2010. Still, she told fans her long-awaited next record is “done” and described it as “really good.”

The Daily Mail has reached out to Love’s representatives for comment.

Love announced in February 2020 that she had been sober for 18 months, a period covering the entirety of 2019, the year her health drastically declined.

After seven years of silence, she relayed the story of her illness to her fans in a video she posted Friday for her more than a million Instagram followers.

‘A lot of you asking where my record is at. It’s done. My record’s done. It’s kind of been done. It’s a really good record. I put a lot into it,’ she said. 

‘And I went to England in 2019, and when I went there, my body just exploded. It just exploded, and I was in hospitals a lot,’ Love disclosed.

‘I almost died. I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds, and they told me I was going to die, and I didn’t believe them,’ said the Doll Parts hitmaker.

Love, who has been estranged from her mother on-and-off for decades and who also suffered a longstanding falling-out with her father that lasted until his death in 2022, said her distrust of the doctors was fueled by her upbringing. 

‘And when I was a kid – and I think this record is about this – I used to pattern-interrupt the adults, and they’d tell me “red.” They’d say red was blue, and then I’d see blue, but blue was blue,’ added the Miss World songstress.

‘So now that I gaslight myself that maybe, maybe they were right and red was blue, and then I would see purple, and my head would explode. Like f***ing cope with that s***, right? I think some of you can relate to that,’ she confided in fans.

‘And then, anyway, I never really lost my ability to see that f***ing – that red was red, despite them telling me that red was blue,’ insisted Love.

‘And so when they said you’re gonna die, I just didn’t believe them. And somehow I got better. I’m healthy, which is amazing.’

She offered assurances to her public that her new album was in the offing, promoting the project in her caption: ‘When I made , it i believed this was my last record so I made the record I always wanted to make. I was in the hospital mostly but when I wasn’t all I did was write & record it .’

In the video, she had looked back at the ‘humbling’ commercial failure of her most recently released album, the 2010 Hole record Nobody’s Daughter.

Writing in her caption, she told her admirers: ‘I want to tour more than anything. & I want to sing . That’s what keeps my soul & body happy .’