In her new memoir, ‘Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk,’ Kathleen Hanna recalled how Courtney Love once punched her in the face.
The singer said she saw Courtney approaching, and throwing candy from a basket. Kathleen felt uneasy and avoided eye contact. Courtney got close, acted like a cat, and yelled at Kathleen to leave and feed the poor. Hanna continued:
“Then she dropped a sweater in front of me and bent down to grab it. As she stood up, she cold-clocked me in the face. I fell down, put my hands up to my cheek, and felt blood. From the ground, I yelled, ‘I will debate you at the college of your choice!’ Courtney yelled back something like, ‘You can’t even read, and I’m way more feminist than you!”
The incident took place backstage at Lollapalooza 1995, where both Hole and Bikini Kill were performing. It happened shortly after Kurt Cobain’s death. Kathleen claims to have been close to Cobain, she even influenced the title of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ Despite this, Love has called Kathleen Cobain’s ‘worst enemy.’
What Did Courtney Say About The Incident?
Love wrote about the incident in her personal account for Spin, and claimed that Hanna provoked her. Hanna supposedly insulted her quietly, mocking her parenting of her and Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean. She revealed:
“[Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill] was my husband’s worst enemy in the world, someone who would stop at nothing to aggravate us … It’s after our set-before Sonic Youth’s and I’m onstage talking to Beck when Eric comes up and says, ‘Kathleen’s behind you. You should give her some candy and freak her out.’ And there she was, sort of smirking at me. I dropped my sweater on the floor, and she sort of whispered under her breath, ‘Where’s the baby? In the closet with an IV?’ I just snapped. My hand was filled with Skittles and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. I just threw them up in the air and went, ‘BAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!’ And then she shoved me, and then I clocked her.”
In the rest of her words, Love described a brief altercation where bodyguards lifted up both her and Hanna. Hanna screamed at Love while Love laughed and told her to go feed the homeless. Love denied attacking Hanna and said some witnesses saw otherwise. Love concluded by saying that Hanna wasn’t harmed, and she barely got to hit her.