In 1989, Courtney met a man who would change the rest of her life. In a way, he would change it for the better, and in another way, he would change it for the worse. This man was none other than Nirvana's lead singer/guitarist/songwriter, Kurt Cobain. "We bonded over pharmaceuticals", Courtney once said. "I had Vicodin extra strength, which was pills, and he had Hycomine cough syrup. I said 'You’re a pussy, you shouldn’t drink that syrup because it’s bad for your stomach.'"
Not too long after Hole's debut album, "Pretty On The Inside", was released, Nirvana released their second album, "Nevermind", which went on to sell eight million copies. Kurt Cobain was a rock star. One night, Courtney and Kat were sitting at a bar when Nirvana’s Nevermind album came on the speakers. Courtney says of it; "....we sat there and we drank and drank and drank and got really mad. We realized no girl could have done that. I wanted to write a really good record and I hadn’t done it yet." (Although, I think Pretty On The Inside was one of the greatest album's of the 90's.)
After seeing a Nirvana show in Portland's Satyricon nightclub in 1989, and falling in love with the lead singer's eyes, Courtney started talking with Nirvana's drummer, Dave Grohl, and in no time they became friends. She told Dave that she had a crush on Kurt and Dave said that he had a crush on her too. Courtney gave Dave a present to give to Kurt. It was a heart-shaped box filled with seashells, pinecones, a miniature doll and a set of tiny teacups. Heart Shaped Box would later become a Nirvana song. Kurt never said anything to Courtney about it, and acted as if it never happened. He was cautious when it came to being involved with Courtney. "She seemed like poison", he once said. Kurt always referred to Courtney as "that junkie from L.A."
One particular night in 1989, Courtney went to see a Nirvana show right after her ex-boyfriend kicked her out of his apartment. She went to the after hours party looking for Kurt while she carried around a big bag of lingerie. When she found him, Kurt put on the lingerie and pranced around in it. Kurt and Courtney spent that entire night together. A few months later, Kurt and Courtney bonded once again while using heroin. Kurt and Courtney went on so many heroin binges that after so long they would get sick without it. After bonding so much over heroin trips, they had become a real couple.
Courtney was Kurt’s exact opposite. She loved attention, she was loud, she was a namedropper. Kurt hated attention, was very quiet, and hated the whole idea of being famous. Kurt once said about her, "It’s like Evian water and battery acid. It doesn’t matter weather she’s a male, female, or hermaphrodite, or a donkey. We’re compatible". However, Kurt and Courtney had their similarities. They were both slobs and neither of them cooked. They were both feminists and strong on the issue of rape. They both supported homosexuality and while Kurt occasionally dressed as a woman, Courtney went out and did the manly things. They were both very intellectual and could debate any topic with each other and come to a reasonable conclusion. The two of them could sit around in bed all day singing and writing lyrics. Both Courtney and Kurt knew the pain of abandonment from their families. Courtney had power that Kurt liked, because her power enabled her to serve as a buffer between him and the outside world. He also liked how Courtney would mother him all the time, something he had longed for since his childhood. Courtney served as endless entertainment. She had a great sense of humour, and she could go from crazy to seducing in a matter of minutes. But their biggest similarity was heroin. They couldn't live without it and were obsessed with it. Heroin was Courtney's and Kurt's biggest bond between each other, and it would tear them apart.
In January of 1992, Courtney found out that she was pregnant. Courtney did not tell Kurt until after their wedding, which took place on February 24, 1992, in Waikiki. Kurt and Courtney were married on a cliff next to the ocean. Kurt wore pyjamas and Courtney wore a green dress that once belonged to the actress, Frances Farmer. Though many said that Courtney had used heroin while pregnant, and Courtney even admitted to using it at her early weeks of pregnancy, Kurt and Courtney quickly dropped the habit when Courtney told her husband the news. Many thought that the baby would suffer due to Courtney’s heroin use in the early weeks of her pregnancy, but the baby was perfectly healthy. Kurt and Courtney refered to the growing child inside of Courtney as "The Bean", because of its kidney shape on the sonogram. On August 18, 1992, Kurt and Courtney’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was born. As the legend goes, when Courtney went into labour she wheeled her IV stand with her all the way to Kurt’s room (he was in the hospital for rehab trying to kick his heroin habit) and demanded he join her for the birth of their child. In the delivery room, Courtney was trying to comfort Kurt while she was giving birth because he felt very sick. He passed out as the baby pushed through and Courtney shouted "You will only have one head". They had a perfectly healthy baby, despite all the tabloids claiming Frances was born as a mutant.
Not long after Frances was born, child services wanted to take the baby away from her parents because of a Vanity Fair article, which claimed Kurt and Courtney were unfit parents. The article also claimed Courtney knowingly did heroin while she was pregnant. Two months after Frances was born, Kurt and Courtney lost custody of their daughter. Kurt was ordered to go back into rehabilitation for thirty days. $240,000 later in legal fees, Kurt and Courtney got their cherished baby back.
Despite the number of times Kurt Cobain went into rehabilitation, he never completely quit his drug use. He would come home many times high, and Courtney even had to call an ambulance a few times; he pulled through each time. She saved his life many times by rushing him to the hospital, and by being there for him whenever he threatened to kill himself. "He would have left this world many years ago if he hadn’t met Courtney", said Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg.
In June of 1993, a drug dealer came to Kurt and Courtney’s Seattle home to deliver drugs to Kurt. Courtney chased the drug dealer away and Kurt got angry. It is said that he hit her and she threw orange juice in his face. They began to scream at each other and wrestled each other to the ground. When Courtney got free from Kurt, she called the police and said that Kurt was pushing, grabbing, and choking her. When the police got there, however, Courtney claimed nothing happened. But the police searched the home after Courtney told them to and confiscated three guns. Kurt denied the guns were his. The only reasons Courtney called the police was so that she could keep guns out of Kurt’s reach as much as possible.
Kurt and Courtney often expressed their love for each other through shouting matches. They had a love/hate relationship, and even though they often fought about everything, they both claimed they were happily married to one another. They badly wanted a good home and family for their daughter.
Courtney finally got so disgusted with Kurt’s drug habit that she quit her own. She went to Narcotics Anonymous and bought an expensive juicer and would blend up healthy vegetable mixtures to detoxify herself. She decided that she was going to attempt to get Kurt to kick his drug habit as well. But Kurt had a mind of his own, and by late 1993, it was rumoured that Kurt’s drug habit was around $500 a day. Despite the fighting, name-calling, and drug use, there was still a lot of love and humour roaming about the household.
While Hole was on tour, Kurt would stay home and try on Courtney’s clothes. Sometimes he would even answer the door wearing one of Courtney’s famous babydoll dresses. Courtney Love and Hole wrote a song called "Beautiful Son", and it was released in 1993 with the lyrics "you look good in my dress…/he had ribbons in his hair/and lipstick was everywhere". Courtney wrote this song about Kurt, expressing her love and deep care for the man she thought was cute and adorable for having a mind of his own.
Kurt didn’t like being famous. He hated touring, he hated the attention, and he hated being chauffeured around. "Kurt didn’t have one atom of rock star attitude, and he needed it", said Courtney to Kurt Loder of MTV. He had lost many of his friends because they all either thought he sold out, or security guards would tell them to leave. His friends got the impression that Kurt thought he was too good for them now that he was famous. This upset Kurt as well as his paranoia that Courtney was having an affair. All these things sent Kurt even farther downhill, and he was already pretty damn far down.
It was 1994; Nirvana was doing a European tour, and Hole was busy in the U.S with publicity for their upcoming album, "Live Through This". After two months of being apart, Courtney and Frances finally joined Kurt in Europe in March of 1994. To celebrate their reunion, Kurt booked them into a big, expensive hotel room and filled it with roses and statues. He also bought Courtney lots of jewels. Later that night, Courtney fell asleep after complaining she was too tired. She thought that Kurt had fallen asleep with her.....When she woke up at 6:30 in the morning she found Kurt on the floor, shaking. He was blue and he had blood coming out of his nose. She also found an eight-page suicide note. Courtney called the paramedics and Kurt was rushed to the hospital. Kurt was in a coma for twenty hours before he woke up. When he did wake up, his first words were, "I want a milkshake". A press release claimed the coma was due to mixing prescribed painkillers and alcohol. There was something seriously wrong inside of Kurt. He had all the love in the world and for some reason, felt he had none. He outwardly gave his love to the world, but inside, he felt as if he couldn't truly love anyone. To Kurt, life was confusing, and every second of every day hurt him.
On March 18, Kurt locked himself in a room after fighting with Courtney and threatened suicide. Again, Courtney called the police after she tried to break the door down with a fire extinguisher. And again, the police confiscated three guns as well as 25 boxes of ammunition and some unidentified pills.
Courtney threw one of many interventions for Kurt in late March in another attempt to get her husband off drugs. His band mates, both their managers, and the few friends Kurt still had left were all telling him he had a problem and urged him to stop using drugs. They tried the tough love routine on him, but it didn't seem to work. Courtney begged him; "You’ve got to be a good daddy", knowing that the only reason why Kurt would live is for Frances. The interventionists told Courtney that it would be better for Kurt if she would leave and give him some time. She took their advice, and, thinking it was best for Kurt, she flew to Beverly Hills, not even getting a chance to say goodbye to her husband. Kurt felt like his wife was abandoning him. Kurt agreed to go to the Betty Ford clinic in California. But after two days he disappeared from the clinic. He had checked himself out. Before he left, he called Courtney and said, "No matter what happens, I want you to remember I love you".
This scared Courtney, and after many failed attempts to contact Kurt, she filed a missing person’s report. Courtney also hired a private investigator, Tom Grant, to track Kurt down. Courtney called various drug dealer houses looking for her husband and wanted to go to Seattle because she thought Kurt would go back there. But the interventionists told her to stay put in Beverly Hills, that they would find Kurt, and that if she went back to Seattle she would just make him mad. So she stayed put. "I didn’t listen to my gut", she would later say. Courtney's worry was killing her.
Hired by Courtney, investigators and friends searched the couple's Seattle home, calling for Kurt the entire time. Kurt did not answer. On April 8th, 1994, an electrician, coming to the house as his schedule had been set, found Kurt Cobain’s body lying in the apartment above the garage in the Cobain's Seattle home. This was one place the investigators forgot to look. Kurt was lying in the floor, a shotgun near his hand, and blood everywhere. Kurt had injected himself with over three times the amount of the lethal dose of heroin and shot himself in the head two days earlier on April 6th. Just two days after Kurt’s body was found, Hole’s new album "Live Through This" was released. The album had an appropriate name. "I’m not psychic, but my lyrics are", would be one of Courtney's most famous quotes.
Though everyone knew of Kurt's blackened loneliness, his hollow emptiness, his abused drug use, his fearful hate of the world, and his neverending rot of depression, no one wanted to admit that he could've been so selfish than to kill himself, yet he was. Still, Nirvana fans did not want to blame Kurt for taking away one of the most treasured human beings. They wanted someone else to blame. After Courtney's father, Hank Harrison, wrote a book titled "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?", people found what they were searching for; someone to blame Kurt's death on.....That someone was none other than Kurt Cobain's long-envied wife, Courtney Love-Cobain.
Hank Harrison's book, "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?", was a story about Kurt Cobain's life, and at the same time was a manipulation of all those who worshipped Cobain, trying to get them to turn on Hank's unwanted daughter, Courtney Love. It's ironic, though, that Hank Harrison never once in his life met Kurt Cobain. Besides seeing pictures of him showered all over magazines and posters and watching his face on television a hundred times a day, Hank probably never even laid eyes on Kurt. Hank had a fierce hatred for his daughter and was envious of the fact that Courtney was able to tell him off and overcome all that he had done to her. He hated the fact that Courtney was happy, but he hated even more that she had all the power he once wished that he could have. Later, in an interview with Nick Bloomfield, Hank states; "I got two Boxer dogs to keep Courtney out of my house. And it worked." He didn't just want Courtney out, he wanted Courtney down. Once Hank published his book, this theory was released into the world. But it wasn't until Nick Bloomfield's documentary, "Kurt and Courtney", was released, that this idea spread wide and planted itself into people's heads.
Nick Bloomfield's documentary was supposed to gather clues and pieces and information about Kurt's life and his relationship with his family and friends. Originally, Bloomfield planned to gather evidence supporting both the murder theory, and the correct theory, suicide. However, after hundreds of thousands of interviews from numerous magazines, TV show hosts, among many others, about Kurt Cobain's death, Courtney Love got tired of talking about it. It hurt her and she hated the fact that people were engrossed in her tragedy and the death of her husband. She found it disgusting, and frankly, so do I. She grew frustrated and angry, and even broke down in occasional interviews. Everytime she was about to be interviewed, she knew that the horrifying flashbacks of Kurt's death would be brought to life and pushed through her heart and pulled out her throat. I'm sure that Courtney dreaded going in for interviews. Along with talking about Kurt's suicide, people always brought up Courtney's old habit of doing heroin and other drugs. This upset Courtney even more. All she wanted to do was get on with her life, she wanted to put her past behind her and forget about all the mistakes she made, forget about all the pain others threw on her shoulders, forget about the soul-haunting agony that came along with her husband's death, forget about who she once was. She wanted to start her life over, she wanted a chance to make herself a better person, and no one wanted to give her that chance. Courtney finally had her lawyers create papers that those who wanted to interview Courtney had to sign, making sure that they didn't bring up certain subjects. With all this hanging over Courtney's shoulders, she most certainly did not want to be interviewed by someone who was going to ask her personal questions, trying to get her to stick up for herself against the lies and rumours about her being a murderer. Courtney tried to stop the tape from being released, and, although she failed, she managed to restrict Bloomfield's privileges. Bloomfield became angry and decided that instead of trying to get people to see both theories, he was going to try to brainwash people into believing that Courtney hated Kurt and was always out to posess what was his. Even though it is extremely obvious that Courtney did not kill Kurt, people were hipnotized by the film the same way they are hipnotized by TV shows, tabloids, and radio. We all know how it is with the world; whatever the television says must be right. But for those very few intelligient human beings out there, we can look at the facts and evidence. During the filming of this documentary, Nick Bloomfield interviews people who never, ever, once in their lives met Kurt Cobain, and those same people hated Courtney Love and wanted to "get their revenge on her". Bloomfield also interviewed close friends of both Kurt and Courtney. Hank Harrison, Courtney's father, and her ex-boyfriend were among some of the people from Courtney's past who were interviewed. They both hated Courtney with a passion and wanted revenge on her. And they both fully supported the murder theory even though they had NEVER once met Kurt Cobain. Tom Grant, an investigator Courtney hired to find Kurt when he had disappeared just before committing suicide, was also interviewed, along with some fat, goat-fucking, jackass. Seriously, this guy supported the EXACT opposite subjects that Kurt did. He and his white trash band made a song called "You Are My Sex Slave" and the video was the most hideous, pathetic, trash I have ever seen. This pimp wanna-be claimed that Courtney Love paid him $10,000 to kill Kurt Cobain. Come on? How could any dumbass be convinced by this loser??? I mean, this guy looked totally ridiculous, I laughed when I first saw him....I mean I cracked up, tears were coming out of my eyes! And he looked so stoned! And it's funny, both Tom Grant and the wish-I-was-born-in-the-ghetto drunk said that Courtney only married Kurt for the money. It's funny because Courtney was already rich before she met Kurt and she already had fame. Maybe not as much, but still, she had both fame and money. She didn't need Kurt's money. Plus, when she first met him, he was not rich or famous. I think the real gold-diggers are the piece of fat rat and Tom Grant themselves. As for Hank Harrison and Courtney's old fucked-up boyfriend, well, they'd been waiting for an opportunity to trash Courtney and I guess they thought that while they were at it, they'd go ahead and make some money. Now, Bloomfield also interviewed Kurt Cobain's aunt, his best friend, Dylan, and his old girlfriend. Watching the interview with Kurt's aunt was very interesting and quite enjoyable, you can see a bit of Kurt in her. And, strange as it may seem (yeah right!), she believes that Kurt killed himself because of his unchangeable depression. Kurt's old girlfriend was also interviewed and told a lot about Kurt. She said that he always seemed very sad even when he was with her and that she thinks he probably killed himself. When Kurt's best friend, Dylan, was interviewed, he stated that he did not have any knowledge of Kurt or Courtney ever having marital problems. He said that they truly loved each other and that Kurt seemed happy when he was with her. Now come on!!!!! You're gonna believe an old, stoned, harley-loving fat guy who never met Kurt nor Courtney over Kurt's best friend who was extremely close to both????!!!! That is so sick. I hope God comes down and beats the fuck out of all those who were stupid enough to believe that Courtney killed Kurt because of this so-called documentary!!!!!!!! And no matter how much evidence you have stored in your tiny, little brains, there will always be better and more honest evidence to prove that you're wrong. And if anyone thinks they can stump me, leave me speechless (yeah right!), go ahead and try me, because I could debate your ass off! If you're true Nirvana fans, you would know that Kurt felt into people's souls and that he knew Courtney would give him more love than anyone could ever give him.....especially more love than any of you could give him. You show hate for him everytime you say or even think that Courtney killed Kurt, as if Kurt was stupid enough to marry someone who hated him. Give me a break! I laugh at people as stupid as you, because you are sheep. You are followers of the media.....you believe what you are programmed to believe....everything you hear and see on television and radio, and everything you read. And that's how you will always be....because you are too much of a pussy to escape and think for yourself. You think just like everyone else.....you will never have a mind of your own....you will never be able to think for yourself. Come on! Don't be a pussy, open your mind and think a little bit! Back to 1994, it seems as if all the people who didn’t care about Kurt Cobain while he was alive, suddenly mourned his death. Even the Nirvana fans suddenly had renewed interest in Kurt Cobain. Notice, Nirvana record sales increased drastically after his death. Interestingly enough, all these people who all of a sudden claimed to care about Kurt Cobain accused Courtney of killing him, simply because she was the only one who was actually there for him when everyone else was not.
At a 1995 Hole concert, two Courtney haters, who called themselves Nirvana fans (don't be fooled!) yelled; "You killed Kurt!" As they were hoping, Courtney heard them. What they weren't hoping for, was a beating! And that's just what Courtney gave them! She jumped into her audience and beat them up! (Way to go, Courtney!) She was carried away from the show by security, crying her eyes out. No one can imagine what it feels like to be blamed for the death of someone you loved more than anything in the world. And not just blamed, but accused of murder. Even though Courtney hid it well, these false accusations were burning her heart. A heart that was once full of undenying love for a man that, without trying to, ripped her apart.
It was said that after Kurt Cobain killed himself, Courtney Love layed in his blood for three days and cleaned it up. She keeps his ashes and strands of his hair on an altar she made for him. She made moulds of his hands and read his suicide note for millions while expressing her grief and rage over her husband’s death. She even dedicates songs and albums to her deceased husband. She also still receives hate mail from so-called Nirvana fans, accusing her of killing him. All of this, piled up into one, overwhelmed Courtney and she started doing drugs again. "How do you get through something like this?" a reporter for Vanity Fair asked Courtney in 1995. "Time", she responded. "That’s all there is. Is time". But at another interview, she broke down and sobbed "I can take anything. But I can’t take this".
My question is, why would anyone cry over someone they didn't love? Courtney loved Kurt. Here's another question; Why would anyone kill themselves, when there were people that he loved? Kurt loved his wife and his daughter, but his pain was too much. I can't say that he was wrong in doing so, that there's no justification for him doing it, or even that his life could've gotten better if he had held on a little longer. I suffer from almost all the same things Kurt did, and some that he didn't. Most of you are probably thinking; "yeah right....she never went through anything as bad as Kurt did". Well, was Kurt a rape victim? I was. Wasn't Kurt popular in high school? I wasn't. Didn't Kurt have friends? I never did. Was Kurt abused as a child? I was. Not to say that there aren't things that Kurt has experienced that I haven't....because I know there are. But I know almost exactly what he went through and while people say; "Kurt was selfish....he could've gotten help, he just didn't want it", I understand that he couldn't be helped. Some people just can't be helped. I used to think all you had to do was go to a psychiatrist every week, take pills, and have needles shoved in your arm every two months. But when I got to that point, I realized that it only made my desire to escape the world grow. While I understand why Kurt did what he did, I do admit that his decision was partly selfish. At least he had a wife and a daughter who loved and cared for him fiercely. He had something to live for.....and he didn't. To have someone love you the way only a child could love you, not trusting anyone but you, and whenever they're alone, just wanting to be with you.....that has got to be the most incredible feeling in the world. And Kurt just ignored it. Look at Frances now. She looks EXACTLY like her father....every part of her. I cry everytime I see her, because I know that it's a shame that her father isn't alive to see how beautiful she is, and that she will never be able to know him, and she will always be a part of him, but she won't even know it. While many say that Courtney destroyed Kurt, I think it was Kurt who destroyed Courtney.
Two and a half months after Kurt’s suicide, Hole’s bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a heroin overdose. She was found lying in her bathtub, the day after she told everyone that she was going to get away and make a change in her life. Again, everyone blamed Courtney, calling it a "coincidence". "When I was growing up my parents did acid and pot", Courtney says in an MTV interview with Kurt Loder. "They didn’t die. Now I have eight or nine dead friends. Lovers and dead husbands and dead band members".
On April 10th, 1994, a memorial service for Kurt Cobain was held in Seattle. Courtney had recorded herself reading Kurt's suicide note while sitting in the room she once shared with him. This recording of Courtney reading part of the note was played at the service....of which Courtney did not actually attend. Here is what she said on the recording;
Note; Blue is Courtney commenting, Red is Courtney reading the suicide note, and Green is the crowd.
I don't know what to say. I feel the same way you guys do. If you guys don't think... to sit in this room where he played guitar and sang, and feel so honored to be near him, you're crazy... Anyway, he left a note, it's more like a letter to the fucking editor. I don't know what happened. I mean it was gonna happen, but it could've happened when he was 40. He always said he was gonna outlive everybody and be a hundred and twenty. I'm not gonna read you all the note 'cause it's none of the rest of your fucking business. But some of it is to you. I don't really think it takes away his dignity to read this considering that it's addressed to most of you. He's such an asshole. I want you all to say 'asshole' really loud.
Asshole
This note should be pretty easy to understand. All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and embracement of your community, it's proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitment of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing something, for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things -- for example, when we're backstage and the light go out and the roar of the crowd begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love and relish the love and adoration of the crowd....
Well, Kurt, so fucking what -- then don't be a rock star you asshole.
.....which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact that I can't fool you, any one of you, it simply isn't fair to you or to me. The worst crime I could think of would be to pull people off by faking it, pretending as if I'm having 100% fun.
Well Kurt, the worst crime I can think of is for you to just continue being a rock star when you fucking hate it, just fucking stop
Sometimes I feel as I should have a punch-in time-clock before I walk out on stage. I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it, and I do, God believe me I do, but it's not enough. I appreciate the fact that I and we have effected and entertained a lot of people. I must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're alone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasm I once had as a child. On our last 3 tours I've had a much better appreciation of all the people I know personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get out the frustration to gather the empathy I have for everybody. There's good in all of us and I simply love people too much.
So why didn't you just fucking stay?
So much that it makes me feel just too fucking sad. Sad little sensative unappreciative pieces.....
Jesus man....oh shut up....bastard. Why didn't you just enjoy it? I don't know. Then he goes on to say personal things to me that are none of your damn business; personal things to Frances that are none of your damn business.
I had a good marriage, and for that I'm grateful. But since the age of seven, I've become hateful toward all humans in general only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy.
Empathy?
Only because I love and feel for people too much I guess. Thank you all from the pit of my burning nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the last years. I'm pretty much of an erratic moody person and I don't have the passion anymore. And remember - and don't remember this because it's a fucking lie - it's better to burn out than to fade away.
God, you asshole
Peace, Love, Empathy, Kurt Cobain.
And there is some more personal things that is none of your damn business. And just remember: this is all bullshit... And I'm laying in our bed, and I'm really sorry. And I feel the same way you do. I'm really sorry you guys. I don't know what I could have done. I wish I'd been here. I wish I hadn't listened to other people, but I did. Every night I've been sleeping with his mother, and I wake up in the morning and think it's him because his body's sort of the same........I have to go now
