Courtney Love's Father Grabs Attention At News Conference

Usually it's Courtney Love's antics that get press attention. This time, it's the rock star's father who has captured headlines.

Love's estranged father, Hank Harrison, was speaking at a news conference in Montreal Thursday. which was called to explain the cancellation of a multimedia show about the circumstances surrounding Kurt Cobain's death, when the father of one of Love's bandmates took the microphone and began a shouting match with Harrison.

Harrison was one of three presenters in a show called "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" It featured slides and video and audio clips, and urged authorities to reopen Cobain's case.

Cobain, lead singer of the band Nirvana, was found dead in his home in April 1994. Investigators ruled his death a suicide, but questions still linger, including those regarding where Cobain spent his final hours and who tried to use his credit card - a card that had been canceled by Love - for days after he had died.

"We're not saying he was murdered," said one of the presenters, Montreal writer Ian Halperin, who, along with the third presenter, Max Wallace, is writing a book on Cobain's death. "We're saying there's enough evidence to reopen the case."

The show was canceled Thursday afternoon, under pressure from Love's attorneys, said show promoter Victor Shiffman.

Love's attorneys could not be reached for comment.

About 80 people - mainly teenagers - attended the news conference at the Rialto Theatre, where Shiffman read a statement from Love's lawyer asking that the presentation not be shown, said theater box-office manager Annette Guerrera.

At one point during the news conference, Montreal journalist Nick Auf der Maur, father of Melissa Auf der Maur, bassist in Love's band, Hole, walked onstage with a friend. Auf der Maur grabbed the microphone and began denouncing Harrison, according to the Montreal Gazette.

Auf der Maur and his friend were thrown out of the theater by security guards, Guerrera said.

The Montreal show was to have been the fourth date of a four-city Canadian tour that started last Sunday.