On July 9, 1964, "Grateful Dead devotee" Hank Harrison and psychologist Linda Risi gave birth to a daughter, and named her Love Michelle Harrison. Linda Risi was born into a rich family and was an heiress to a fortune. However, she refused to follow the path set before her and left for San Francisco, California to find herself. There she met Hank Harrison, a Grateful Dead groupie. Linda became pregnant and soon after, she and Hank were married. According to Linda, Courtney was "an absolutely, unimaginably calm and happy baby. She hardly cried." Hank described her as a "dream child."
A year after Love was born, Hank and Linda got divorced. Linda later claims that she married "a no-good piece of trash." Not long after the divorce, Linda married her garbage man whom she had been having an affair with during her first marriage. So Hank ran off with a fellow Grateful Dead groupie.
Linda and her new husband took Courtney and moved to Eugene, Oregon. Linda had Love's name rechristened as Courtney Michelle. Linda (who's last name is currently Caroll) had a court order filed which kept Courtney’s father from being able to see her until she became an adult.
When Courtney hit the age of two, her mother decided to start sending her to therapy sessions. Linda once told Vanity Fair magazine that Courtney "...was in so much pain. And that manifested itself ever since she was a little girl, in ways in which I had no clue how to deal with." Courtney went to counsellor after counsellor throughout her childhood. Each counsellor Courtney went through had a difficult time diagnosing her. One counsellor recorded her as "amazingly bright but a frighteningly angry child." Courtney became frustrated and finally just stopped talking. This lead her counsellors to believe that she was autistic. Courtney's mother wanted to help her so she started to study therapy and later became a counsellor herself.
Linda went through many divorces and was in four other marriages. Besides Courtney, she had five other children. Of course, the more children Linda had, the less time she had for Courtney and the less attention Courtney got. Courtney loved attention and got angry when she did not get it. To make sure she always got the most attention Courtney would throw crying fits and tantrums. Unfortunately for Courtney, these fits pushed her mother to the decision of sending her to an institution.
When Courtney was not in institutions, she was visiting counsellors and psychiatrists. Courtney never had many friends as a child and she hated school. Because of her mother's habit of moving from place to place, Courtney always had to play the role of the new kid in school. Courtney was quite unsanitary as a child and never cared the least bit what she looked like or what others thought about her. This brought about the consequence in which Courtney had to be the center of the other kids jokes and teasing. Eventually, the kids decided to call her "Pee Girl" because her clothes were never clean and always smelled bad. Courtney also claims that she used to pee in her pants all the time at school. She just loved attention! Whether it be good or bad.
Courtney's family always lived among other hippies in communes, teepees, and farmhouses because, although fairly wealthy, her mother despised capitalism and would do nothing to support it. This is another reason why Courtney never fit in with the other children. Courtney, being the strong-willed girl she was, never tried to be like anyone else just so that she could fit in. However, Courtney's mother wanted her to fit in and have friends so, while living in Eugene, Oregon, Linda took Courtney to a psychiatrist after several nightmares Courtney claimed to have had and the psychiatrist suggested Girl Scouts. As Linda told Vanity Fair magazine in 1995 "the psychiatrist said part of the problem with her was that she needed to join Girl Scouts. She needed to be in normal kid activities. I dutifully went to a Brownies meeting with her....I could tell it was really hard for her to be in this room with all these kids. The person who was the Brownies leader suggested they have an art show. She asked all the kids to draw something. The things that Courtney drew were always startling. She didn't draw sunsets and apples trees. She would draw sort of...wounded figures. I can still see her that day-her little face so intense with those crayons. At the end of that, the teacher told the troop that they were going to see what drawing they liked the most by holding them up one by one and everyone applauding. I knew that this would be terrible for her. When it got to hers, she just grabbed it and ran over to me, and we left. At that time, when a child was exhibiting the kind of pain Courtney was exhibiting-a lot of nightmares and a lot of crying and hating school and hating everything -the treatment was pretty much to try and make that child what they called 'normalized' rather than saying, 'What kind of creature is this, and how can we make her be O.K. with who she is?' That whole belief system was really awful for her."
By the time Courtney was eight years old, her need for attention grew, and she started to take acting lessons. Courtney later says; "I studied the part of Snow White forever and had it down, and they gave me, without even auditioning me, the part of the Evil Witch."
Not long after Courtney turned eight, Linda met a busboy and got a new idea for a different kind of lifestyle. She decided to try shepherding. On making this decision, Linda packed up the entire family and moved with her new husband to New Zealand. Well, she packed up almost the entire family. Linda left Courtney in Oregon with her therapist, leaving Courtney to believe that she was not wanted. However, Courtney's therapist couldn't handle her and a few weeks later, Courtney was shipped off to New Zealand to live with her family. But the idea that she was unwanted stuck in Courtney's head and convinced her to run away, which she tried numerous times. On the way to New Zealand, she bolted during a stopover en route. But Courtney was not going to live with her mother. Instead, Linda sent Courtney to live with one of her good friends in New Zealand. Courtney began to create a close bond with her mother's friend. This made Linda jealous, so Courtney was placed in a boarding school. But only a few weeks later, she was expelled. So Linda sent her to a liberal free school.
When Courtney was ten years old, her "family" moved back to Eugene, Oregon in the United States and sent Courtney to live with one of Linda's ex-boyfriends in Portland. Linda’s other children lived happily with their mother and current husband, while Courtney was constantly being shuttled between foster homes. Every time she was sent back home, her mother would send her some place else. It seemed as if nobody could handle Courtney. She was a drama queen and a manipulator. She lied, she was violent, and she challenged authority. She never let anyone tell her what to do and was purposefully rebellious. It was as if Courtney hated the world and everyone in it. People thought she was defiant and obnoxious. This girl just couldn't get any worse, that is, until she hit puberty!
As a teenager, Courtney was interested in bands like the Clash, the Pretenders, and the Sex Pistols. She made her decision that she wanted to be a rock star. One time, she stole a KISS T-shirt and was put on probation. She decided to run away again and when caught, she was shipped to Reform School where she lived next to teenage killers and other menaces to society. After being in Reform School for several months, her biological father, Hank, came and got her out. She then went to live with him. Her first words to him after being apart since she was a year old were "Why did you abandon me?" This started the heated arguments and proved to Hank that Courtney wanted nothing to do with him. So Hank sent Courtney back to Reform School.
When she was fourteen years old, Courtney was finally released from Reform School and went to Japan. She became a stripper to make money. For Courtney, stripping turned out to be a great way to get attention. Six months after she arrived in Japan, she returned to America and went to live in Portland. She lived in various different foster homes and continued to strip.
Courtney also visited numerous social workers and
when she was 16, one of them learned of her mother's wealth and requested that she be given legal and financial emancipation from her mother. Courtney began receiving $800 a month from a trust fund set up by her maternal grandfather.
Courtney longed to settle down, so she went to stay with her father in Dublin, Ireland. There she was able to see a band she liked in concert and decided to follow them to Liverpool. Courtney pushed her way into the Liverpool music scene by pushing her way into conversations, crashing parties, and inviting herself to shows. Courtney always managed to get herself into all the happening scenes. Courtney may have felt as if she was finally fitting in, but people always got annoyed with her for her constant scenes and her loud confrontations.
In 1982, at the age of seventeen, Courtney returned to Portland, Oregon. She continued to force her way into the music scene and this allowed her to keep her bad reputation. It was in Portland that Courtney announced to everyone that she was going to start a band and someday be a rock and roll sex symbol. And everyone laughed at her.
When Courtney was in a good mood, no one was more fun to be around than she was. She never got boring, even after 22 hours of straight talking. But she had a horrible side as well. “One minute she’d be cracking up the crowd she’d invited to her place, and the next she’d be insulting them and hissing at them to leave.” Little did they know, Courtney's loud, obnoxious attitude would help her to become all that she wanted to be.
