Courtney Love clarifies story about Brad Pitt and ‘Fight Club’
Courtney Love didn’t plan to mention Brad Pitt during that juicy interview on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast this week, but she’s explaining now why she did it.
As a recap, Love told Maron that she had originally been cast in the 1999 David Fincher movie Fight Club, to play the role of Marla that eventually went to Helena Bonham Carter. Love said that she’d been fired, however, after turning down Pitt and director Gus Van Sant’s request at the same time to make a movie about her late husband, Kurt Cobain. She used the term “went nuclear” to describe her reaction. Pitt had planned to play the Nirvana frontman, who died by suicide at 27 in 1994.
On Friday, Love clarified her comments in a lengthy statement:
“Hi. Regarding a story I told on the @marcmaron #wtf podcast. A story I was never going to tell. Brad pushed me a bridge too far. I don’t like the way he does business or wields his power. It’s a simple fact, and it started during the production of Fight Club.
“I understand how much of a game of roulette casting is. I am not here 22 years later bitching about losing a part playing someone’s side piece in a movie.
“On the podcast, I recount the day Brad & Gus Van Sant called me from lunch and tried to blackmail me over my role, for the rights to a film about Kurt. I lost my shit on them, and by 7pm I was fired from Fight Club. Every word of this is factual. This was always a secret that I was fine keeping.
“It’s a movie. Indeed, I passed on better roles than that. Who cares?”
“The point,” Love continued, “is Brad kept on stalking me about Kurt. With all this resentment in our history, one might ask why I took yet another pitch for Kurt’s film from Brad after all these years? It’s because I’m in recovery. And resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.
“I was over being mad about it. Plus, I heard Pitt was dealing with the same demons. So, we might both have changed our spiritual world views. Not to be.”
In her talk with Maron, Love said she had last said no to a Pitt project on Cobain, whom she married in 1992, in 2020. She addressed that conversation in her new post.
“It’s not just the Zoom I had with Brad in 2020 where I said no to @planbfilms & Brad producing it,” she wrote. “It’s that I said NO on the Zoom and that was not enough, and I was not heard. I was ignored.”
She added, “I had no plans to bring it up with Marc Maron but up it came. I told the story because I felt Pitt would not stop pursuing Kurt — unless I said it in public.
“I don’t want Brad to be pissed off at me and become his resentment. I want him to do better. I’m not into assault. Cmon brother Pitt. I wish you well, truly.
“If he’s mad at me, that’s his problem. I enjoy him as a movie star immensely. Not so much as a biopic producer.
“Hope this clarifies, and thanks for your time.”
Finally, Love complimented Bonham Carter’s performance.
“I’m sure Helena Bonham Carter was utterly meant to be Marla Singer and I do not bear her or [star and Love ex] Edward Norton or David Fincher or [producer] Art Linson — all people whose work & genius I respect immensely — any ill will.”
Yahoo Entertainment reached out to Pitt and the studios behind Fight Club for comment, but did not receive a response.
