Post by Lithium on Feb 7, 2003 8:32:59 GMT -5
Courtney Love Arrested After Flight to London
[/b]Tue Feb 4
LONDON (Reuters) - British police arrested U.S. rock star Courtney Love at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday after cabin crew said she had abused them during a transatlantic flight.
Virgin Atlantic said the 38-year-old star, widow of rock band Nirvana's late singer Kurt Cobain, was detained following a disturbance on board its flight from Los Angeles.
An airline spokesman said Love, lead singer of the band Hole, had become disruptive and had verbally abused cabin crew during the flight, which had 200 passengers on board. No one was injured during the incident.
"She was having a row with one of the flight attendants," one woman passenger told reporters. "There were a lot of raised voices."
Love, in a statement issued through her Los Angeles publicist, said the incident had been exaggerated. There was a brief verbal disagreement during the flight but this situation has been highly exaggerated," the singer said.
British police said Love, who was flying to Britain to attend an Elton John (news) charity show Wednesday according to media reports, had refused to sit down and put on her seatbelt prompting the plane's captain to radio ahead shortly before the plane landed.
"We will not tolerate disruptive behavior by passengers on board any of our aircraft and always report it to the authorities. The matter is now in the hands of the police," the Virgin spokesman said.
Police were waiting for the flight when it arrived and after about 20 minutes Love, whose past behavior has earned her a reputation as a hell-raiser, was escorted off and put into a police van.
Television footage showed the singer appear to stagger as she was led across the airport tarmac, while waving and smiling at photographers, despite the attempts of one police officer to cover her face with a scarf.
The woman passenger said Love had "looked out of it" as she was taken away. "She had bright red lipstick on which appeared smudged," she added.
Police said Love had been arrested for disruptive behavior and endangering an aircraft.
Love has been courting controversy recently, stripping for a naked photo shoot at a London hotel for Q Magazine's March issue which features pictures of her having her bikini line waxed.
Last week she phoned fashion designers in the middle of the night in a bid to find an outfit to wear to Elton John's show, according to newspaper reports.
Love is not the first rock star to have been accused of causing trouble on a transatlantic flight.
Last year Peter Buck, guitarist with top-selling band R.E.M was cleared of going on a drunken mid-air rampage and assaulting staff on a British Airways flight from Seattle. [/center]
Credit: Yahoo.com ( news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=638&ncid=762&e=2&u=/nm/20030204/en_nm/crime_love_dc )