National Enquirer: COURTNEY LOVE FLIES OUT OF CONTROL

[ Graffiti in the Men's Bathroom now says, "Courtney Love Eat Here". An arrow points down to the toilet. ]

Rock widow blacks out on plane & is taken away in a wheelchair

Unruly Courtney Love passed out during a flight to Dallas, Texas, and was so out of it when her jet landed she needed a wheelchair to get off the plane! BAD GIRL Courtney Love was returning from a bizarre music festival appearance when she passed out on the plane. She says it was food poisoning.

The widow Cobain was returning from Austin after spending a weekend in March at the South by Southwest Music Conference, where she'd already attracted notice for her bizarre behavior.

"Courtney partied out of control," a source told The ENQUIRER exclusively.

Courtney was in Texas to give a speech at the conference and was put up at the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel. But despite the celebrity treatment, things got off to a bad start and then got worse.

"When Courtney arrived in town there was an inflammatory story about her in the local press and it totally enraged her," the source said. "She threatened to cancel her lecture. Conference organizers had to rush flowers to her suite to soothe her."

That night the star drowned her sorrows in a wild night on the town.

"Courtney and friends went to a club called the Hole in the Wall and drank tequila," the source said. "Then in the wee hours of the morning she locked herself into the men's toilet and wouldn't come out! For nearly 20 minutes guys were pounding on the door but she wouldn't unlock it."

Love survived the rest room escapade and showed up for her March 16 speech on schedule. But she complained loudly of a hangover and asked for the decongestant Sudafed, and her mind didn't seem to be on her speech.

One press report called her lecture on the artists' rights movement "rambling, unfocused and self-obsessed."

Another concluded her "cause got buried under the weight of so much gibberish that all her talk offered was the experience of seeing a celebrity unravel."

When it was over, the rattled rock star left with boyfriend Jim Barber, a former record executive, to catch American Airlines Flight 515 from Austin to Dallas. On the trip home Love created a scene, according to fellow airline passenger Bob Andrews.

"There was a commotion in the first class section," Andrews told The ENQUIRER. "Courtney, wearing jeans and running shoes, was sprawled out unconscious."

When the plane landed, Love was carted off in a wheelchair.

"Her boyfriend was trying his best to keep her from sliding out of the wheelchair," Andrews said. "She was flopping around like a rag doll. Her eyes were closed and she was out. He had to get the flight attendants to help him keep her in the chair while pushing her up the ramp. I literally had to step over them to get past.

"I felt bad for the guy and I felt embarrassed for her."

A spokesman for Courtney Love confirmed that the rock star had to use a wheelchair to exit the plane, but blamed the star's condition on food poisoning.

"Courtney says this had nothing to do with partying," Courtney's publicist Jill Fritzo told The ENQUIRER. "She was very sick."

Published on: April 17, 2002