Courtney Love remained in bed throughout my audience with her in a small hotel room in west London in 1987. She had attached a poster of Bon Jovi's singer to the wall and several times screeched "Jon Bon Jovi is God!" Room service provided a continental breakfast and Love picked at a croissant and came alive with gossip: "I found out some really true great dirt on Nancy Reagan, from a really good source. When she's on tour with Ron, she eats just one single perfect white grape, brought to her especially on Air Force One."

Love was 22 and three years away from meeting Kurt Cobain. She was about to appear as "a pregnant white trash gangster's moll" in Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. She began speaking about the Mexican food on location, then more enthusiastically about sushi she'd devoured day and night while a stripper in Taiwan and the black puddings shared with her ex, the singer Julian Cope. She also noted that her "crazy hippie parents" may have eaten the placenta when she was born.

Love had somehow lived in her own apartment at 15, but currently all her possessions were in storage.

"My whole 'thing' seems to come from a lack of consistency and rhythm in my life," she pondered.

"I came home from school one day and all the food had been removed from the fridge and replaced with algae. And my mother said: 'We're all going on a spirulina fast for a week!' Three years ago I went to see her again and there was just sugar-juice. I thought: 'Oh no, nothing changes.'"

Carpet-fitters began hammering outside the bedroom door. "Bastards!" howled Love, almost sending the tray crashing off the bed.