Courtney Love Teams up With Doja Cat on Cover of ‘Celebrity Skin’ for Super Bowl Commercial Despite Conflicting Views of Covers
Courtney Love and Doja Cat have teamed up for something bizarre. They collaborated on Love’s Hole song, “Celebrity Skin,” for a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial.
To say we didn’t see that coming is an understatement. It’s not bizarre that the two singers would collaborate. However, it is strange that it came about for a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial. Not to mention Love has a history of being overly critical of covers.
Courtney Love and Doja Cat have teamed up for a cover of ‘Celebrity Skin’ for a Taco Bell Super Bowl commercial
Doja Cat will star in Taco Bell’s Super Bowl commercial on Feb. 13. The commercial, called “The Grande Escape,” will come during the Super Bowl’s fourth quarter and see the singer’s cover of Hole’s “Celebrity Skin.” Love helped reimagine some of the lyrics for the occasion:
“Oh, make me over/ I’m all I want to be/ A walking fire/ You can’t get rid of me,” she sings in the first verse, replacing the lyrics “A walking study/ In demonology.” Rolling Stone writes the song will also drop as a single this week.
“It’s no secret I’m a major Taco Bell fan which has made my role with this campaign all the more fun,” Doja Cat said in a press release. “I’ve enjoyed every moment of this campaign, especially the ones where we get to break all the rules.”
Doja Cat has a similarly gritty voice as Love, so the cover sounds good. However, we’re still surprised that Love would agree to such a thing.
Love has a history of being protective of Kurt Cobain’s music and overly critical of covers
Over the years, Love has become extremely protective of her husband, Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain. Anytime someone covers his music, she’s there commenting on it immediately. Some covers have been met with applause; others have not.
When Lana Del Rey covered Nirvana’s classic “Heart-Shaped Box” during a concert in Australia in 2012, Love wasn’t best pleased. Love essentially mocked the singer in a deleted tweet.
“You do know the song is about my Vagina right? ‘Throw down your umbilical noose so i can climb right back,'” Love wrote (per the Hollywood Reporter). “umm… On top of which some of the lyrics about my vagina I contributed. So umm next time you sing it, think about my vagina will you?”
Love also said a version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” covered in The Muppets had “raped” Cobain’s legacy.
On the other hand, there are some Nirvana covers that Love seems to like. In 2020, Love gave her stamp of approval to Post Malone after he announced he would be performing Nirvana songs during a livestream performance to raise money for coronavirus relief efforts.
“Thank you @postmalone,” Love wrote on social media (per Billboard). “I approve the usage. Good luck mr malone.”
Meanwhile, Love doesn’t seem too critical of covers of her own music, which is a good thing for Doja Cat.
Love really liked Miley Cyrus’ cover of ‘Doll Parts’ but she didn’t like Olivia Rodrigo’s album cover
Despite being overly protective of Cobain’s music, Love doesn’t seem to be the same way when it comes to her own. This could be the reason why she was OK with Doja Cat covering “Celebrity Skin.”
After Miley Cyrus covered Hole’s “Doll Parts” on The Howard Stern Show in 2020, Love posted the video on her Instagram. In a later post, Love wrote (per Rolling Stone), “As Lana Del Rey says, ‘My legacy is my lovemaking,’ the motto of the soft feminist illuminati…and I couldn’t agree more. Can someone please translate our motto into Latin? I may get a tattoo of it.”
There seemed to be no animosity in that comment, but Love did become combative with Olivia Rodrigo. In 2021, Love noticed that a promo of Rodrigo’s looked suspiciously similar to the cover of Hole’s 1994 album Live Through This.
“Spot the difference! #twinning! @oliviarodrigo,” Love posted on social media. In other comments, Love said Rodrigo should’ve asked her or cover photographer Ellen von Unwerth for permission to recreate the album cover.
“it was rude of her, and geffen not to ask myself or Ellen von unwerth. It’s happened my whole career so i.d.c. But manners is manners,” Love said (per Entertainment Weekly).
We hope Doja Cat had manners during her and Love’s collaboration. Otherwise, it’ll become another social media war.
