The other night, I finally sat down to watch VH1’s Behind The Music about Courtney Love. Watching the interview portions of Behind The Music felt like visiting with an old friend.  She’s still the same—endearing and maddening at the same time.

Lady Rockers

At some point late in my sophomore year of high school, I decided to take on a little side project.  I was on a mission to hear and find out about as many women-fronted rock bands as possible.  This led me to nearly lose my mind over PJ Harvey, Babes In Toyland, The Breeders, Belly, L7, Concrete Blonde, a tape that I magically had of a band called the Slits, and of course, Hole.  I still loved The Smiths, and U2 and the Pixies, and Pearl Jam’s first album, but the women rock stars were the real deal.  They spoke to me in a language that my sad, teenage heart could understand.  They spoke to me because I spoke their language.

In the days before the Internet, before DVR, when VCR timers were still a bit wonky, I would stay up late on Sunday nights, often until 2 AM, watching MTV’s 120 Minutes in the hopes that they would play one of my favorites. I’d read Spin, and maybe NME if I could find it, and I’d buy the Village Voice every Wednesday in the hopes of reading about them. 

PJ Harvey was my favorite. her songs were so full of angst and pain and sexual disquiet that she was almost embarrassing to listen to.  The press would show up at her lonely little studio in Dorset, and she’d confess to journalists that she never dated anyone until she was 20.  In those days, she would get on stage wearing all black, her hair pulled back, a tiny person with a huge voice and even bigger talent.

Ms. Love

Courtney Love was different.  She was tall, larger-than-life, fond of arguments, brash, mercurial.  She wore baby doll dresses and tons of red lipstick and played her guitar from between her legs.  Her voice was scratchy, with none of the usual singer niceties, but she screamed a lot, which gave her audiences the license to scream along with her.

And yet for all of her brashness and screw-you attitude, the thing that I kept noticing as I watched her on TV last week was her face.  Over the years, she’s had a multitude of nose jobs, lip implants, and probably botox and other things.  Courtney’s interview revealed a person who had never been okay with her appearance.  Even in her early 20′s, while playing a pregnant woman in a movie, she was so concerned about looking fat that, every day, she took a little stuffing out of the pillow she was using to look pregnant in the movie.

So what, right?  She’s a rockstar who’s in the public eye, lives in Hollywood, etc. etc. etc.  But with Courtney Love, it’s a particular kind of bummer.  She’s written song after song about how much it sucks to be objectified and how much women are just seen for their relative attractiveness and bodies.  She sees all of it, but still internalizes it.  In other words, she writes songs about how much b.s. women in go through in terms of their bodies and body image, but she’s still in a place where she feels the need to drastically alter her face and body.

In essence, she’s in a spot that a lot of you reading this are in right now.  Perhaps you’ve been reading about HAES and body acceptance and you think, intellectually, that people should accept and love their bodies, but you’re not there yet.  Or, you’re able to get to a place of acceptance and then something—a friend’s comment, something on TV, whatever—throws you out of it and you’re back where you were, feeling crappy about your body and thinking body acceptance is not for you.

If this is the spot you’re in, I want to hear from you.  Comment below (and make sure to leave your email address) and tell me a little about your struggle with loving your body.  One commenter (chosen at random) will receive a FREE 60 Minute Body Love Breakthrough Session with me.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness. She counsels women and men throughout the country on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's counseling and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline and Time Out New York. For more support with healing your relationship with food and your body, get your free copy of Golda's Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining by clicking here.