Fox’s hip hop drama series Empire has started to bust out the guest appearances as its ratings rocket, with Courtney Love set to appear in the show’s sixth episode.

The Hole singer will play Elle Dallas, Empire Entertainment’s huge-selling R&B singer who is struggling to get back on top as she deals with drug addiction.

“She’s got a lot of entitlement, and I think she’s just lost,” Love told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think she’s no longer relevant, and she’s not making relevant music, and because she has such a big drug problem, she’s not really paying attention to what’s relevant and what’s not; she couldn’t care less.”

Part of her inspiration for Dallas came from divas like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, explained Love.

“It’s made clear in [the episode] that Elle sold 147 million records as opposed to my paltry 8 [million], so I look at Mariah [Carey] and Whitney [Houston] and some of the big divas that have sold those kind of numbers, and what Whitney was like the very short amount of time I spent with her, and Mariah, who’s great — I adore her, but she does have a retinue; she’s an industry unto herself. I kind of wanted to bring some of that [to Elle]. She’s trying to get relevant again, but until she gets rid of the drug problem she’s not going to be able to focus on being relevant again.”

In her first episode, Love’s character performs Al Green’s ‘Take Me to the River’, which Spotify listeners in the US can hear in the player below.

Last month Love made her opera debut in pop opera Kansas City Choir Boy, and she’s also plotting a Kurt Cobain musical. [via Rolling Stone]