Courtney Love Reveals 2019 Health Scare & New Album Update

Courtney Love has delivered a major update on her long-awaited new music, revealing that her next solo record is finished. Alongside the promising news about her upcoming album, the musician opened up about a harrowing health battle in 2019.

A Finished Record and a 2019 Health Scare

In a video posted to Instagram, Love addressed fans wondering about the status of her next release. “A lot of you are asking where my record is at,” she said. “It’s done. It’s kind of been done. It’s a really good record. I put a lot into it.” An Instagram caption accompanying her updates added that she believed the project would be her final record while creating it, noting, “I was in the hospital mostly but when I wasn’t all I did was write & record it.”

Love shifted to discuss her move to London in 2019 and a severe illness that followed. Though she did not specify the exact medical condition, she stated that her body “exploded” and that she found herself in and out of hospitals frequently. “I almost died,” Love said. “I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds. And they told me I was going to die. I didn’t believe them.”

Childhood Memories and Industry Reflections

Connecting the experience to her creative process, Love detailed childhood memories of how she would “pattern interrupt the adults.” She explained, “They’d say red was blue, and then I’d see blue. But blue was blue. So I’d gaslight myself that maybe they were right, and red was blue …and my head would explode.” She added that this refusal to accept false narratives fueled her resilience during her illness: “I never really lost my ability to see that fucking red was red… And so when they said I was going to die, I just didn’t believe them. And somehow I got better.”

Reflecting on her catalog, Love looked back at Hole’s final album, 2010’s Nobody’s Daughter, describing its commercial reception as a “spectacularly humbling” experience. She recalled playing at Pizza Hut Park at 11 a.m. while Limp Bizkit headlined with 30 Seconds to Mars.

Looking Ahead to the Next Era

While figuring out how to roll out her next musical era, Love expressed enthusiasm for the current musical landscape, praising live performers and noting, “Shit’s amazing.” Her upcoming work features contributions from notable collaborators, including Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and longtime friend Michael Stipe. Love was recently the subject of the documentary Antiheroine, directed by Edward Lovelace and James Hall, which premiered at Sundance in January. “I want to tour more than anything, and I want to sing,” she wrote. “That’s what keeps my soul and body happy.”