NEW YORK – Rocker Courtney Love was taken to a New York hospital on her 40th birthday after she missed an arraignment on an assault charge in California, her lawyer said.
“It is not a suicide attempt, not drug-related, not drug-overdose related,” attorney Michael Rosenstein said from Los Angeles on Friday.
He added that “I have not spoken with her since last night, when she complained of medical problems, had not seen doctor and as a result the situation was exacerbated.”
Photographs showed Love on a stretcher, and published reports said witnesses saw the singer being put into an ambulance outside her apartment in Manhattan.
Love is the widow of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, a leading light in the Northwest grunge scene before his 1994 suicide in Seattle.
The New York City fire and police departments said emergency personnel responded to that address Friday and took a woman to the hospital. They did not confirm the woman was Love.
Earlier Friday, a warrant was issued for Love’s arrest when she failed to appear in a Los Angeles court for arraignment on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon stemming from an April 25 incident at the home of her former manager and ex-boyfriend.
Rosenstein told a Los Angeles court that Love was in New York City and was confused about whether she was required to be at the hearing in Los Angeles.
Court Commissioner Dennis Mulcahy said there was no excuse for her failure to appear. He said she forfeited her $55,000 bail and he set a new bail of $150,000.
The New York Times and the New York Post reported Saturday that police had been called to Love’s apartment earlier Friday with a report of bottles being broken.
Samuel Jackson, a fashion designer who was there, told the Times he saw Love draw her blinds after paparazzi serenaded her with “Happy Birthday.” An ambulance reportedly arrived shortly afterward.
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