Courtney Love opened up about her relationship with Johnny Depp on Instagram, praising him for saving her life in Los Angeles in 1995 after she overdosed.
Overdose in front of the Viper Room
Courtney Love’s comments came from a series of videos her friend Jessica Reed Kraus posted to her Instagram account over the weekend:
“I don’t want to judge publicly. I just want to let you guys know that Johnny gave me CPR when I died of an overdose outside the Viper Room in 1995,” Love said in the now-deleted video.
The Viper Room was a well-known club in Hollywood, California that Depp once owned. It was there that actor River Phoenix collapsed in October 1993 and died of a drug overdose.
“Mom, he saved my life”
Courtney Love added that Johnny Depp supported her daughter Frances Bean Cobain when Love was struggling with her own drug addiction. “Johnny wrote her a four-page letter on her 13th birthday when I was on crack and Frances was going through that with social workers,” Love said, adding that the three parties didn’t really know each other at the time.
“Then he would send limos to her school, where all the social workers would crawl around — again without being asked — so she and all her friends could go to Pirates of the Caribbean,” Love continued. “I’ve never seen any of those pirate movies, but Frances loved them. When she was 13, she said to me, ‘Mom, he saved my life’.”
She also expressed her sympathy for the public criticism of Amber Heard: “Before TikTok, I was the most hated woman in the world. I have a lot of empathy for how that must feel for Amber.” However, she added, “But when you’re using a movement for your own personal gain and you’re inhabiting queer-feminist intersectional spaces and you’re abusing that moment, then I hope that the justice is served. Whatever that may be.”
More on the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
Courtney Love backtracked
Krauss later retracted the posts, emphasizing that only some of the comments and videos were intended for the public. Afterward, Love tried to clarify her comments about Heard in an Instagram post of her own:
“The platform accidentally posted a story that I didn’t want to make public,” Love wrote. “I want to show neutral support for a friend. I don’t want to bully because I’ve been bullied enough myself. Also, I didn’t want to express my own bias or internalized misogyny.”
She continued, “The only important thing is that we should all stop enjoying the gloating and show my sincere sympathy to both parties.”