“Be man enough”: Courtney Love calls out Dave Grohl on Billy Corgan’s podcast

“Come out with it and say we’re cool,” Love said, directed toward Grohl. “[You have] all these straight males and we’re cool, but you won’t say it because you’re afraid you’ll lose your audience.” Love has long faced the ire of Nirvana fans, who have positioned her as the band’s Yoko Ono and, in extreme moments, accused her of killing Cobain. Love poked at Grohl’s entertaining those claims when she noted, “You’re afraid it’ll affect your relationship with literal Paul McCartney.” Love noted that Grohl didn’t have McCartney’s “talent,” but that the two had connected over their star bandmates’ tragic deaths. “Dave, it would really behoove me if the straight white males that are your base will stop picking on me,” she apostrophized, clarifying that she referred specifically to millennials. Corgan tried to tamp the flame, noting, “Dave doesn’t have any issue with you.”

Love and Corgan have had their share of relationship ups and downs over the years, but one thing has remained blissfully consistent: their hatred toward Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon. In a conversation about so-called “indie gatekeepers,” Corgan stated that Gordon was “the worst.” Love agreed: “She was the worst, and she kind of still is.” The pair went on to remember Gordon being “mean” and “rude.” Sonic Youth helped Nirvana get signed by DCG Records, and Gordon co-produced Hole’s first record, Pretty on the Inside. In her memoir, Girl in a Band, Gordon called Love “mentally ill” and a possessor of “tarantula L.A. glamour—sociopathy, narcissism.” Gordon also labeled Corgan “a crybaby” and the Smashing Pumpkins “in no way punk rock.”