Courtney Love reveals she nearly died, confirms new solo album is finished

Courtney Love says she came close to dying and has confirmed that her new solo rock album, the follow-up to 2004's America's Sweetheart, is finished. Love shared the news in an Instagram video posted around August 18, 2026, according to the Argentine outlet Indie Hoy.

In the video, Love said the record has been done for some time: "It's finished. It's been finished for a while. It's a really good record. I put a lot of myself into it." She then described a serious illness in 2019 that repeatedly put her in and out of hospitals, saying she lost her hair, dropped to roughly 100 pounds, and was told by doctors that she would not survive.

Love said she refused to believe that prognosis, drawing a comparison to a childhood memory of being told a color was something other than what she saw with her own eyes, a habit of doubting her own perception that she said nearly broke her: "they said red was blue, so I saw blue. But blue was blue." She said she never actually lost the ability to see that "red was red," even while being told otherwise, and that the same stubbornness carried her through the 2019 diagnosis.

She said she eventually recovered and credited her refusal to accept the doctors' prognosis with helping her get through it, calling her current health "incredible." She said she made the album believing it might be her last, spending most of her time in hospitals but writing and recording whenever she could.

Now healthy, Love said she wants to tour and sing again, calling performing what keeps her "body and soul happy," a return to the stage that would be her first extended run behind original solo material since 2004.