I feel very sorry for Courtney Love. She very clearly needs help for her drug and emotional problems (and needs to admit she needs help) but I really can't see how having her kid put in someone else's custody helps anyone.

And if she were not a celebrity, she would not have had her child taken away. Instead, a social worker might have been assigned to do family preservation/home-based intervention work trying to get her into rehab and help her understand why having your 11 year old make tea for you while you wait for the ambulance to arrive because you have just overdosed isn't a good thing. More likely, however, absolutely no action would have been taken if Courtney Love weren't famous and was just another rich Californian with a full-time, live-in nanny who does most of the childcare anyway.

And I'm sorry, but anyone who raised Kurt Cobain doesn't have better parenting skills than Courtney Love (the authorities have given Frances to Cobain's mother for the moment).