Love

Where were you, Gen Xers and elder millennials, when Courtney Love awkwardly crashed Madonna‘s live interview with Kurt Loder after the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards? Eduardo Braniff was literally right there. A mid-level MTV executive at the time, Braniff was the designated talent escort for Love and her Hole bandmates for the 11th annual VMAs, held at New York’s Radio City Music Hall 30 years ago, on Sept. 7, 1995.

Braniff says he was “randomly” assigned to escort the band during rehearsals and night-of-show. And while colleagues knew he was deft at handling “shall-we-say ‘dynamic’ talent,” none could predict that Love would make pop culture history that night: After pelting Madonna and Loder with compacts from her purse, she inserted herself into their chat, which was being held on a platform outside the venue.

The clash between two very different icons — Madonna begged Loder not to invite her up, quipping “Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now” — went viral a decade before YouTube or Twitter launched, and served as a chill precursor to Kanye West and Taylor Swift’s 2009 debacle. Broadcast during MTV’s hegemonic peak, that night’s actual ceremony featured some equally wild, if forgotten, juxtapositions of stars. The Notorious B.I.G. and Bill Bellamy (remember him?) presented Michael and Janet Jackson with a Moonman for Best Dance Video for “Scream”; Janet wore a “Pervert” T-shirt, widely interpreted as mocking pedophilia accusations against her brother. But nothing could compare to this post-show moment.

The two women were at distinct professional and personal phases at the time. Madonna was enjoying her second consecutive decade of global superstardom, celebrating her fourth Moonman win (for “Take a Bow”), a comeback from the harsh backlash toward her Erotica LP and Sex book era, and preparing to shoot her dream film role, Evita. (Motherhood and her acclaimed album Ray of Light were still a few years away.) She was also a VMAs MVP from the jump, with a slew of definitive show moments behind her, including the seismic debut of “Like a Virgin” at the very first broadcast in 1984; a performance of “Vogue” in Marie Antoinette drag in 1990; and a post-feud appearance with David Letterman in 1994.

Fellow scene-stealer Love, by contrast, was still ascendant and much rougher around the edges. A year later, the grunge goddess would get a proper glam Hollywood makeover while touting her part in The People Versus Larry Flynt. But back in ’95, only about a year and a half had passed since the traumatic, era-defining suicide of her husband, Kurt Cobain. That night, before performing “Violet” with Hole, she dedicated it to Cobain, River Phoenix, Hole’s late bassist Kristen Pfaff, and other friends they’d lost.

“To me, she was nothing but super cordial,” Braniff recalls of Love that night. “[But] she was a little loaded for bear with MTV, thinking that they had not done enough to promote the album… She was frustrated.” 

During the “chaotic” post-show walk to their cars, Braniff says Love’s entourage included not just her bandmates Eric Erlandson, Patty Schemel, and Melissa Auf der Maur but also pal Drew Barrymore, Love’s toddler Frances Bean Cobain, and a nanny. “It was a little bit like herding cats,” he says now. “One of my cats darted away! I don’t know exactly how she clocked that Madonna was out there, but she did.”

Braniff quickly realized what Love, eyeing the Queen of Pop, was about to do. “She is making her way over to Kurt and Madonna, wanting to be extraordinary Courtney,” Braniff remembers. “She has something to share, she’s got a show to give. I, in my capacity supporting the production, was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to interrupt this.’” Show producers agreed. “They knew that there was some artist-rivalry gold in the making,” he adds, recalling their take as “‘Let that happen because this is going to be good.”

And it was. Over an excruciating four minutes, with a sedate Loder declining to moderate much, the two previously acquainted women spoke about their shoes, comedian Dennis Miller, and Madonna’s Maverick label breakout Alanis Morissette. A rambling Love likened fame to working in a hospital: “I like it here. Good money!”

“And a lot of available drugs!” Madonna snarled back. Before the Material Girl’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, finally whisked her away, air kisses were exchanged. (A solo Love later hugged it out with Loder’s MTV News partner Tabitha Soren.)

“I mean, you have Madonna in full Tom Ford couture, and you’ve got Courtney in that messed-up baby doll look,” Braniff says. “It was almost cartoonish. How could we draw these two more distinctly? There they were.”

The twosome would cross paths a couple times again — most notably for an iconic 1997 Rolling Stone “Women of Rock” cover with Tina Turner — but relations never seemed to thaw much.

“I don’t like her and she doesn’t like me,” Love, who is now based in London, told the Standard last year. “I loved Desperately Seeking Susan, but for the city of New York as much as her.”

For his part, Loder told his alma mater Rolling Stone back in 2023: “It was a wonderful moment for television. If you were gonna have to write it up later, it would have been terrible… If somebody falls off the top of a building, it’s wonderful television.” (Madonna has never addressed the incident. Neither she nor Love responded to a request for comment for this story through their reps.)

“We all love a good spat, but back in the day, because it was a different media landscape, you didn’t get to have as many episodes in the rivalry,” adds Braniff. “It was a really wonderful capper to the evening and that time.”