She appeared in supporting roles in the Alex Cox films Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987) before forming the band Hole in Los Angeles with guitarist Eric Erlandson.

In 1995, Love returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which established her as a mainstream actress.

The subsequent several years were marred with publicity surrounding Love's legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album.

At age 19, through her then-boyfriend's mother, film costume designer Bernadene Mann, Love took a job at Paramount Studios cleaning out the wardrobe department of vintage pieces that had suffered dry rot or other damage.

[72] Love asked Bjelland to start the band with her as a guitarist, and the two moved to San Francisco in June 1985, where they recruited bassist Jennifer Finch and drummer Janis Tanaka.

[83][84] After filming Sid and Nancy in New York City, she worked at a peep show in Times Square and squatted at the ABC No Rio social center and Pyramid Club in the East Village.

[85][86] That year, Cox cast her in a leading role in his film Straight to Hell (1987),[87] a Spaghetti Western starring Joe Strummer, Dennis Hopper, and Grace Jones, shot in Spain in 1986.

[92][93][94] Displeased by the "celebutante" fame she had attained, Love abandoned her acting career in 1988 and resumed work as a stripper in Oregon, where she was recognized by customers at a bar in the small town of McMinnville.

[95] This prompted Love to go into isolation and relocate to Anchorage, Alaska, where she lived for three months to "gather her thoughts", supporting herself by working at a strip club frequented by local fishermen.

[111] Their debut single, "Retard Girl", was issued in April 1990 through the Long Beach indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry and was played by Rodney Bingenheimer on local rock station KROQ.

[112] With no wave, noise rock, and grindcore bands being major influences on Love,[101] Hole's first studio album, Pretty on the Inside, captured an abrasive sound and contained disturbing, graphic lyrics,[113][114] described by Q as "confrontational [and] genuinely uninhibited".

[163] Hole performed a series of riotous concerts over the following year, with Love frequently appearing hysterical onstage, flashing crowds, stage diving, and getting into fights with audience members.

[158][164] One journalist reported that at the band's show in Boston in December 1994: "Love interrupted the music and talked about her deceased husband Kurt Cobain, and also broke out into Tourette syndrome-like rants.

[166] On July 4, 1995, at the Lollapalooza Festival in George, Washington, Love threw a lit cigarette at musician Kathleen Hanna before punching her in the face, alleging that she had made a joke about her daughter.

[201] During this time, she starred opposite Jim Carrey as his partner Lynne Margulies in the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon (1999), followed by a role as William S. Burroughs's wife Joan Vollmer in Beat (2000) alongside Kiefer Sutherland.

[204] The following year, she returned to film opposite Lili Taylor in Julie Johnson (2001), in which she played a woman who has a lesbian relationship; Love won an Outstanding Actress award at L.A.'s Outfest.

[208] In March 2001, Love began a "punk rock femme supergroup", Bastard, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Louise Post, and bassist Gina Crosley.

[217] In October, she was arrested in Los Angeles after breaking several windows of her producer and then-boyfriend James Barber's home and was charged with being under the influence of a controlled substance;[218] the ordeal resulted in her temporarily losing custody of her daughter.

Nobody's Daughter featured material written and recorded for Love's unfinished solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, including "Pacific Coast Highway", "Letter to God", "Samantha", and "Never Go Hungry", although they were re-produced in the studio with Larkin and engineer Michael Beinhorn.

[262] Robert Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five, saying Love "worked hard on these songs, instead of just babbling a bunch of druggy bullshit and assuming people would buy it, the way she did on her 2004 flop, America's Sweetheart".

The latter track is, in fact, one of Love's most raw and vulnerable vocal performances to date ... the song offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a woman who, for the last 15 years, has been as famous for being a rock star as she's been for being a victim.

[270] After dropping the Hole name and performing as a solo artist[271] in late 2012,[272] Love appeared in spring 2013 advertisements for Yves Saint Laurent alongside Kim Gordon and Ariel Pink.

[282] In an interview with the BBC, Love revealed that she and former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson had reconciled, and had been rehearsing new material together, along with former bassist Melissa Auf der Maur and drummer Patty Schemel, though she did not confirm a reunion of the band.

[303][304] In the footage, while on the red carpet for the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson, Love was asked by Natasha Leggero if she had any advice for "a young girl moving to Hollywood"; she responded, "If Harvey Weinstein invites you to a private party in the Four Seasons [hotel], don't go.

[321] As a teenager, she named Flipper, Kate Bush, Soft Cell, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro,[322] Lou Reed, and Dead Kennedys among her favorite artists.

[323] While in Dublin at age fifteen, Love attended a Virgin Prunes concert, an event she credited as being a pivotal influence: "I had never seen so much sex, snarl, poetry, evil, restraint, grace, filth, raw power and the very essence of rock and roll", she recalled.

[164] In the 1990s, her performances with Hole were characterized by confrontational behavior, with Love stage diving, smashing guitars[125] or throwing them into the audience,[363] wandering into the crowd at the end of sets,[363] and engaging in sometimes incoherent rants.

"[365] In 1993, Love and husband Kurt Cobain performed an acoustic set together at the Rock Against Rape benefit in Los Angeles, which raised awareness and provided resources for victims of sexual abuse.

[373] In May 2011, she donated six of her husband Cobain's personal vinyl records for auction at Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation event for victims of child abuse, rape, and domestic violence.

These days, Love seems to have rebounded from her epic tailspin and has leveled out in a slightly more normal manner, but there's no doubt that her life to date is the type of story people wouldn't believe in a novel or a movie.