A journalist has claimed that Courtney Love once grabbed his crotch without his consent.
Frank Elaridi spoke about the alleged incident on his podcast, Quite Frankly, in which he had a conversation with Nahko Bear, who faced an allegation of sexual misconduct in 2020.
The pair were discussing an incident in which Bear was alleged to have groped a woman’s breast without her consent, which he has denied. Elaridi then recalled his interaction with Love, which he said had taken place six years ago.
“I think I was like 24 or something at the time – naive,” he said [via The Independent]. “They send me to Coachella to go do an interview with her. I’m at her afterparty, interviewing her in a side room, and then she’s like, ‘Come hang out with us!’”
Elaridi claimed that he was “caught off guard” when the Hole singer touched him inappropriately after having a photo of them taken together.
“And the second [the] photo’s done, she grabs my crotch, like, really hard,” he said.
“I was caught off guard. There’s literally a photo ‘cause somebody across the room snapped it [and] sent it to me.”
The podcast is also available to watch as a video, in which Elaridi displays the photo in question. It shows Love with her hand over his crotch, with him looking surprised.
In response, Bear asks: “So you’re gonna cancel her?”
“That’s what I’m saying. That would never cross my mind to be like, ‘Let me go after her now, 10 years later’,” Elaridi said.
“She’s a rock star in my head. Not to justify [her behaviour] or say it’s OK, but in my head, that would never cross my mind to do that.”
NME has approached Love’s representatives for comment.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Love shared some unpublished lyrics that Kurt Cobain wrote for the early drafts of Nirvana’s biggest hit ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.