Courtney Love took a joyride in famed photographer David LaChapelle‘s car after “stealing” it from outside Soho House in the Meatpacking District.
The rock icon raced off in LaChapelle’s chauffeur-driven SUV — with his permission — to director Brett Ratner‘s house, promising to return to pick up LaChapelle so they could all head to his exhibition at Lever House on Monday night.
But Love didn’t come back, and instead ensconced herself at Ratner’s until near dawn, leaving LaChapelle fuming about the whereabouts of his car at the members-only club.
A source told us, “LaChapelle was freaking out, saying Courtney had taken his car. He was frantically trying to reach her and his driver on the phone to find out where the hell they were.”
The fun started when Love and LaChapelle were hanging out at Soho House and wanted to lure Ratner out to meet them. But things went haywire when Love failed to come back for LaChapelle, who was overheard ranting about his missing car.
A Soho House rep confirmed the incident, adding, “Courtney did take his car. David was flipping out and going crazy at the front desk that Courtney stole his car.”
A sleepy Ratner told us, “Courtney and David are best friends. We were all supposed to go to the Lever House together, but I was too tired. They were on the phone together while she was at my house.”
Sources said Love wound up spending most of the night at Ratner’s. The director probably needed some shut-eye after spending the weekend in Vegas toasting Mike Tyson‘s renewal of vows to Lakiha Spicer. He tweeted at 4 a.m., “Go to sleep . . . What your staying up for isn’t worth it.”
Love told us, “We were supposed to go to Lever House and I was dispatched with his car. But Brett didn’t want to get out of bed and we ended up talking. David was back at Soho House waiting.”
A friend of fed-up LaChapelle added, “David gave Courtney his car to pick up Brett, then he doesn’t know what happened. He went home [presumably in a cab] and went to sleep.” His rep said, “No comment.”