The NYDN’s Rush & Malloy got the strangest interview with Courtney Love over the weekend. It’s strange, first of all, because she sounds so coherent. Secondly, it’s weird because she’s talking about how her daughter, Frances “The Bean” abused her (rather then the other way around) and how Courtney has reconciled friendship-wise with Edward Norton. Oh, and the third weird thing: Courtney might be dating Uma Thurman’s ex, hotelier Andre Balazs…? What the hell? The stuff about Frances-on-Courtney violence is a sad story, but the stuff about Ed Norton is funny/interesting. Something about how Courtney’s cracked out delusions made her think that Norton had lost $300,000 of Courtney’s money when really he tripled her investment. How could Courtney not remember that?

Courtney Love may finally be on the cusp of happiness. With her first album in 10 years already looking like a hit, the Hole singer is closer to a reunion with daughter Frances, has made peace with old beau Edward Norton and may have a new beau lined up.

Let’s get to that last part first. The Love missile has been spending an awful lot of time lately with Andre Balazs, according to spies. The dashing hotelier, ex-husband of modeling czarina Katie Ford and ex-boyfriend of Uma Thurman, was seen with Love last week at the Mercer and the Minetta Tavern.

Love insists Balazs is just “an old friend and my sometime landlord.” Our spies say the friends looked like they should get a hotel room, which Balazs has plenty of.

Meanwhile, Love has been making nice with Norton. A few weeks ago, she went on Twitter to blame him for her allegedly losing $300,000 in a fund he told her to invest in. But Love has now tweeted that she was “wrong” and that he actually tripled her money.

“I feel very bad,” Love tells us. “I have the greatest respect for Edward. He could be the President of the United States. I could be his drug czar – ha, ha.”

Love says Norton also has been a “force of good” in serving as an informal communicator and mediator between her and 17-year-old Frances, whom a restraining order bars Love from speaking to. (A friend of Norton’s insists that his role in the drama has been minimal.)

Mother and daughter fell out last October after a donnybrook at their Tribeca apartment.

“I was talking on the phone,” recalls Love. “Frances came out of my room. She was hysterical. First she was crying at my legs, saying, ‘Why was I born?’ Then she bites and scratches and pulls on my hair. She punched me.”

A source who says she witnessed the confrontation corroborates that Love “never hit Frances. Not one time. All the punches were coming from Frances.”

Love says, “I grabbed her with both arms. That left a bruise and she took a picture of her bruise.”

By December, a judge had taken Frances away from Love and placed her in the care of the mother and sister of her father, rock god Kurt Cobain, who took his own life in 1994.
Love finds it “creepy” that Frances should be represented by Geraldine Wyle, who is also the attorney for Britney Spears’ father, Jamie, in Brit’s guardianship case. Love suspects Jamie convinced Wyle to retaliate against Love after Love claimed that a female member of the Spears family had told her Jamie had molested her. Wyle and a rep for Jamie both declined to comment.

“Geraldine told Frances all this pie-in-the-sky b.s. – that she’d get all this money,” charges Love, who at the same time understands her daughter’s confusion. “Look who her parents are! We were a little lax.”

Love has heard that, after two months away from Mom, Frances has told California child services “she wants to come home.” She tearfully adds, “I should have never gotten mad at her. I love her so much.”

Love believes “we’ll be back together” no later than August, when Frances turns 18 and becomes a legal adult.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for April 8. On April 27, Mercury releases Hole’s record “Nobody’s Daughter.” The first single, “Skinny Little Bitch,” was the most-added song on rock radio last week.

Love shrugs off ex-flame Billy Corgan’s threat to make trouble if she tries to release two songs they collaborated on: “Billy is talking out his a-. His people already gave permission.”

And word is director Bennett Miller is considering the “People vs Larry Flynt” actress for a part in “Moneyball,” co-starring Brad Pitt.

“Who gets a second shot at 45?” asks Love. “I’m a lucky bitch.”

[From Rush & Malloy]

Yes, Courtney is a “lucky bitch” much in the same way Lindsay Lohan is a “lucky bitch”. They’re both lucky to be standing relatively upright after consuming a massive amount of drugs. As far as the claims that Frances abused Courtney… what do you think? I don’t really know who to believe or how I really think this sh-t went down. My gut tells me that Courtney isn’t the kind of person to smack around her daughter. But when I ask myself if I think Courtney is capable of violence, my answer is a definite “yes”. On the other side, I do think Frances is a screwed up kid, and she probably blames her mother (correctly) for a lot of her problems. I really have no idea.

Courtney Love on February 28, 2010. Credit: WENN.