Courtney Love Sued By Memoir Co-Author

MANHATTAN (CN) - Courtney Love stiffed the co-writer of her upcoming memoir out of $100,000, failing to pay him the balance he was due upon completion of the 123,375-word manuscript, the biographer claims in Federal Court.

In a federal complaint, Rolling Stone writer and celebrity biographer Anthony Bozza says Love hired him in July 2010 to help write her memoir for William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Bozza alleges that Love, an actress and musician and the widow of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, has already received $400,000 of a $1.2 million advance for the book, tentatively titled "Girl With the Most Cake," and has failed to live up to her promises to pay him a minimum of $200,000 for his work, whether the book is ultimately published or not.

To date, she has paid him only half of his agreed-upon fee, the complaint says.

Bozza also claims Love owes him thousands for expenses incurred writing the book, as required by the Agreement.

According to the complaint, Love accepted Bozza's manuscript and never told him that he was terminated as her co-writer. He says in the lawsuit that when he sent Love an advance draft of the manuscript in 2012, she responded positively, e-mailing in response that "the work was 'f***ing beautiful' and left her 'breathless!!!!!'"

Bozza said he received similarly favorable feedback from HarperCollins after turning in the full manuscript in 2014. A few months later, though, Love texted Bozza that she was "trying to fix the book," and then told Britain's Telegraph newspaper that she "recently rejected her own ghostwritten autobiography," the lawsuit says.

Eventually, Love auditioned other authors to co-write the book and distributed Bozza's manuscript to them to be re-written in their own voice, the complaint says.

Bozza is seeking compensatory damages of at least $200,000 for alleged breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

He claims in the complaint that her failure to pay his fees and expenses constitutes an anticipatory breach of their Agreement. He also claims that Love breached the Agreement with "frequent unexplained absences," which made her unavailable for interviews and caused "substantial delays" to the project.

The current release date of Love's memoir is unknown, and a call to her publisher seeking comment was not returned.

According to the lawsuit, an Amazon product page on the book promised that it explored "many juicy subjects," including Love's battles with drug addiction and rocky relationships with celebrities including Cobain and actor Ed Norton. At press time, no such page could be found on Amazon.

Bozza is represented by Rishi Bhandari of Manhattan law firm Mandel Bhandari. Love's talent representatives could not be reached for comment.

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