Guilty Love goes to rehab

Courtney Love today pleaded guilty to drug-taking. After seven months of denials Love, 39, made her admission and agreed to go into drug rehabilitation.

The widow of grunge rocker Kurt Cobain was initially arrested outside her ex-boyfriend's home after turning up in the early hours of the morning and smashing several windows.

Tests later revealed she had taken cocaine and other opiates. Arriving at court in Los Angeles without her usual swagger, Love accepted she had been high on drugs during the incident.

"Guilty," she said softly when the judge asked for her plea. Love, lead singer in the band Hole, also answered "yes" several times when asked if she understood the terms of the plea agreement.

At earlier hearings, Love had turned up two hours late and told her lawyer he was fired before brandishing empty pill bottles at the judge.

Assistant city attorney Jerry Baik said her drug rehabilitation programme will last several months and includes classes, counselling and probably random drug testing.

If she fails to complete the course she could be brought back to court and sentenced to at least 90 days in jail.

Sentencing was set for 16 July when a count of disorderly conduct relating to the smashed windows is expected to be dismissed.

Love still maintains her innocence on separate charges, arising from the same night, of illegally possessing prescription painkillers. That case, being dealt with by a court in Beverly Hills, could see her jailed for up to three years and eight months.

Love also faces charges in New York of assault and reckless endangerment for allegedly hitting a fan with a microphone stand at a club in March.

She claimed she fired her original lawyer, William Genego, because of his suggestion that she plead guilty to the drugs misdemeanour charge. "He wanted me to plead guilty to something I didn't do," she said.

But her new lawyer, Michael Rosenstein, persuaded her that the original advice was her best course of action.

Love was arrested twice on 2 October - the first time after allegedly smashing the windows and then several hours later after she reportedly overdosed at her own Beverly Hills home.