How did Kurt Cobain die? How did the musician live and what led him to the decision to commit suicide? The life and death of Nirvana rock band leader Kurt Cobain (50 photos)

An examination showed that Cobain had been dead for several days; How the exact date death was announced on April 5. A significant amount of heroin was found in the musician's blood. The police report indicated that death was the result of "penetrating gunshot wound to the head"; the cause of death was given as suicide. Kurt’s family and friends noted his depression and hints of suicidal behavior even before his death: “He was very quiet. I distanced myself from all my relationships, didn’t communicate with anyone,” Dave Grohl recalled in an interview with Cobain biographer Charles Cross. Chris Novoselic, recalling their joint trip to Cobain’s dealer, spoke even more categorically: “All he wanted was to get stoned until he lost consciousness... To die is what he wanted.” A month before his death, the musician was taken to the hospital with a severe drug overdose: many regard this incident as his first suicide attempt. Two weeks later, his wife, singer and musician Courtney Love, called the police, saying that her husband had locked himself in a room and was threatening to commit suicide, but after protests, Kurta retracted her words. During this period leading up to his death, Cobain suffered from a severe heroin addiction, which caused his relationship with his family to deteriorate greatly. In addition, it is known that he was always prone to depression (he was diagnosed with manic-depressive psychosis): this is a family trait of the Cobains - two of his paternal uncles also committed suicide.

Version of murder

The first version of Cobain's murder was voiced by American journalist Richard Lee ( English), which, a week after the musician’s death, released a series of programs Kurt Cobain Was Murdered. In them, he highlighted details of police reports and video footage as implausible.

A later prominent supporter of the murder theory was Tom Grant, a Los Angeles private investigator hired by Courtney Love (who was in Los Angeles at the time) on April 3, 1994, after Cobain escaped from rehab on April 1, 1994 . Tom Grant was hired by Courtney to search for Kurt, whose whereabouts had been unknown since April 1, 1994 (that is, since his escape from a rehab clinic), and to find out the identity of the person who tried to use Kurt's blocked credit card a few days before his death ( Courtney later admitted to Grant that she had lied about Kurt's credit card; in an attempt to restrict her husband's movements, she canceled his credit card, claiming it was stolen). Grant, according to him, was alarmed by Courtney's illogical behavior and confusing testimony during the investigation. In the process, Grant established, in his opinion, a number of interesting facts. According to the private detective, someone wanted to paint a picture of suicide and portrayed it almost convincingly. Grant's main arguments were the following statements:

Grant comes to the conclusion that Courtney Love ordered the murder. Love's relationship with Cobain was at a critical juncture in the final months of his life; the detective believed that the singer was afraid of a possible divorce and chose to get rid of her husband. Shortly before his death, Cobain began the process of filing divorce papers, after which Love's share of the inheritance from her deceased husband would be reduced from $30 million (as a widow) to $1 million (as an ex-wife).

Grant was also supported by documentary director Nick Broomfield, author of an investigative film called Kurt & Courtney(). His video interview with rock musician Eldon "El Duce" Hawk, included in the film, is often cited by supporters of the murder theory as further evidence that Cobain was murdered and did not commit suicide: in this recording, Eldon announces that Courtney Love offered him to kill her husband and promised him 50,000 dollars for it, said that he knew who killed the musician, but did not reveal the name of the criminal - only once he called the name of a certain “Alan”, after which he laughed and said: “I’ll do that.” so the FBI can catch this guy! Just a few days later, Hawk was killed by a train on railway(which, according to conspiracy theorists, is also highly suspicious). At the same time, many were critical of El Duce's testimony; Thus, journalist Everett True, who knew Cobain closely during his lifetime, writes in his book “Nirvana: The True Story” (in the Russian edition - “Nirvana: true story") that Hawk is openly mocking the interviewer in this video. Broomfield himself, in an interview shortly after the release of Kurt & Courtney, announced that he did not believe in murder: “I think he committed suicide ... Courtney just pushed him to do it.”

Ian Halperin ( Ian Halperin) and Max Wallace ( Max Wallace) published a book in 1999 called “Who Killed Kurt Cobain?”, in which they investigated the murder theory and also interviewed Tom Grant. They ultimately concluded that while the conspiracy theory lacked hard evidence, many questions still surrounded Cobain's death and the murder case should not have been closed so quickly. In 2004, the authors wrote a second book, Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, which makes similar conclusions.

Reactions of family and friends

Some of Kurt's relatives and friends also doubted that he committed suicide, or, according to at least, expressed their bewilderment at this act. Mark Lanegan, a longtime friend of Cobain, admitted in an interview with Rolling Stone: “I never imagined that he would commit suicide. I thought he was just going through a rough patch.” The same article quoted Dylan Carlson, one of the last people to see Cobain alive, as saying that he wanted to ask Kurt or someone close to him if the Rome incident was a suicide attempt. Kim Gordon, bassist for Sonic Youth, who knew the musician during his lifetime, remarked in a 2005 interview: “I don’t even know if he killed himself. Some of his loved ones don’t think so…” and when asked if she thought Cobain was killed by unknown people, she answered in the affirmative. By talking about “close ones,” Kim may have been referring to Leland Cobain, who openly announced that, in his opinion, his grandson did not commit suicide, but was the victim of murderers. In the same interview, Gordon's husband, Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore, also said a few words about Cobain's suicide: “He died a hard death; It wasn't just an overdose, he killed himself with violence and cruelty. It was so... aggressive, but in life he was not aggressive, he was smart, he had an unusual mind. So his action can only be explained this way: what the fuck? gesture. But this gesture... there is something wrong with it, there is something unnatural about it. It somehow doesn’t really fit into the framework of what we know about all this.”

In turn, some of Kurt's relatives and friends, including his mother, Wendy Cobain, and his former comrades in the group, they are skeptical about the version of the murder and agree with the official conclusion or generally refuse to comment on this topic. In an interview with Today, Wendy said: “Kurt's suicide was not an accident. He carefully considered his step and carried it out methodically. I have lived the last two years in the belief that he will soon die.” There she noted that, in her opinion, “the incident in Rome was ... [his] first attempt to die”: “I immediately realized that this joyful “recovery” of his was nothing more than a clownish dramatization. He already had one foot in the grave.” Kurt's cousin Beverly, a psychiatrist by profession, especially emphasized the fact that in the Cobain family there had been repeated cases of suicide and mental illness (in particular, both of his paternal uncles committed suicide). After the death of her famous cousin, she became seriously interested in the topic of suicide and its causes and devoted herself to working to prevent suicide among young people, publishing, among other things, a book entitled When Nothing Matters Anymore: A Survival Guide for Depressed Teens(“When Nothing Matters Anymore: A Survival Guide for Depressed Teens”). . Dave Grohl stated that he always felt that Kurt was destined to die young. Journalist and musician Everett True, who knew both Cobain and Courtney Love well, was also critical of the rumors about the “murder”; in his book, he quotes the words of another acquaintance of Kurt, Rene Navarrete: “One guy later found me through my brother and expressed a conspiracy theory that Kurt was killed. That's funny. Kurt himself told me a couple of times that if he was going to commit suicide, then this is the only way, in this exact way. We joked about it. They joked about how many drugs you need to take to be able to bring a gun to your own head - and that’s what happened. That’s the kind of humor we had - we made fun of people and things like children.” Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg is also harsh on this theory: in his book Dispatches From The Culture Wars: How The Left Lost Teen Spirit he mentions “idiotic internet rumors that Cobain didn’t commit suicide but was murdered” and admits that thoughts of the musician’s death still cause him pain.

Greg Sage, leader of the influential punk rock band Wipers and one of Kurt's idols, who knew him during his lifetime, commented on Cobain's death in one of his interviews:

I cannot theorize or make any assumptions here, I only know what he told me personally: he was not particularly happy about all this. I think success seemed like a brick wall to him. There was no other way for him but to end it all; it was all too false for him, and he was not a false person at all. He was actually going to come here on the day about two weeks after he died, he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. But it was kind of kept a secret because people definitely wouldn't let him do it. Think about it, he was in a billion-dollar industry back then, and if the industry had known that he wanted to leave, they would never have allowed him to do that, they would never have allowed that to happen in life, because if he had just left with scene, he would have been completely forgotten; but if he had died, he would have been immortalized.

Original text (English)

Well, I can’t really speculate other than what he said to me, which was, he wasn’t at all happy about it, success to him seemed like, I think, a brick wall. There was nowhere else to go but down, it was too artificial for him, and he wasn’t an artificial person at all. He was actually, two weeks after he died, he was supposed to come here and he wanted to record a bunch of Leadbelly covers. It was kind of in secret, because, I mean, people would definitely not allow him to do that. You also have to wonder, he was a billion-dollar industry at the time, and if the industry had any idea at all of him wishing or wanting to get out, they couldn't have allowed that, you know, in life, because if he was just to get out of the scene, he'd be totally forgotten, but if he was to die, he'd be immortalized.

Biography and episodes of life Kurt Cobain. When born and died Cobain, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. Musician Quotes, Photo and video.

Years of Kurt Cobain's life:

February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994

Epitaph

"Better to burn than to fade away".
Words from Kurt Cobain's suicide note, quote from Neil Young's song "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"

Biography

As a child, he was prescribed Ritalin to reduce hyperactivity, and, unfortunately, it was not the most powerful drug he had to take in the future. All his life he suffered from stomach pain, chronic bronchitis and even manic-depressive psychosis. So no one could answer this question - was he talented because he was sick, or was he sick because he was talented and could not cope with the fame that befell him. One way or another, in my short and tragic life Kurt Cobain managed to become a legend and a star of a magnitude that many musicians could only dream of.

The biography of Kurt Cobain is the story of a difficult child from a single-parent family: parents' divorce, quarrels, conflicts with adoptive parents, spending the night under bridges and in hospitals, drugs, arrests. When Cobain, along with his friends, decided to create his own group, he was already a drug addict, and he only started thinking seriously about giving up drugs when Courtney Love, his great love, became pregnant. For the sake of his daughter, he wanted to change his whole life, but, alas, it turned out to be not so easy. His albums sold instantly, and he himself, from a poor teenager, suddenly became a millionaire who had everything: fame, success, money, love, family, friends. He became increasingly addicted to heroin, justifying his addiction by saying that his stomach pain was getting worse, but the truth was that he was a drug addict and the more successful his life seemed, the worse his addiction became.

Of course, he struggled - especially with the birth of his daughter. Kurt Cobain quote: “I knew that when I had a baby, everything would change, and this pure truth. I can't tell you how much my life changed when we had Frances. When you hold a child in your arms, you feel like this is the best drug in the world. “I really don’t want my daughter to be told when she grows up that her parents were drug addicts.” He even took Frances with him on a tour of the United States, claiming that he got rid of stomach pain and drug addiction and generally feels great. But soon he acquired heroin again, and with it depression, isolation, aggression, and pain returned.

At some point he simply lost control of himself. Neither Courtney Love nor his friends could help Kurt, no matter how hard they tried. He either “accidentally” drinks rapnol and champagne and falls into a coma, then he locks himself in the bathroom, so Courtney has to call the police to confiscate all the weapons in the house. Just a week before his death, Kurt goes to rehabilitation at the Daniel Freenan drug center and it seems to everyone that he is calm and determined, but two days later he escapes. On March 30 he buys a gun, on April 1 he calls Courtney and says: “No matter what happens, I love you,” on April 3 his friends find him and bring him to the Seattle airport, but he manages to escape. Last hours Almost no one saw Kurt Cobain - all that is known is that he bought heroin, that he called a friend and said that The best way to end everything is to shoot him in the head. Finally, on April 5, he returned to his home on Lake Washigton, and police decided the danger had passed and lifted the surveillance. Only three days later, Kurt Cobain's body was found by an electrician. According to the results of the examination, the musician took a dose of heroin incompatible with life, but the cause of Cobain’s death was the subsequent gunshot to the head. Experts also established the date of death of Kurt Cobain - April 5. In Kurt Cobain's suicide note, he confesses his love for his daughter, asks for forgiveness for everything and quotes Neil Young - "it's better to burn out than to fade away."

Accept that the 27-year-old talented musician committed suicide, it was not easy for thousands, if not millions of his fans. Perhaps that is why many of them were haunted by the question of who really was Cobain’s killer? How did Cobain die? Didn't the fact that Cobain was so intoxicated with drugs that he could not have been able to lift the gun raise doubts among the investigators? Many blamed Cobain's death - directly or indirectly - on Courtney Love. One way or another, all these conjectures and conjectures remained unproven.

Kurt Cobain's funeral, or rather, a public farewell ceremony (Cobain was cremated and his ashes scattered), took place on April 10. Seven thousand people came to say goodbye to the legend. Biographies of Cobain, films and books about his life are still being published, but, alas, his departure was irreversible. Therefore, all that remains is to listen to Cobain’s music, which, unlike him, turned out to be immortal.

Life line

February 20, 1967 Kurt Donald Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Washington.
April 24, 1970 Birth younger sister Kurta, Kimberly.
1975 Cobain's parents divorce.
1985 Cobain created his own group called Fecal Matter.
1987 The new name of the group is Nirvana.
1988 Release of Nirvana's first single.
1989 Bleach's debut album.
1990 Meet Courtney Love.
1991 The release of the Nevermind album, the success of the group.
February 24, 1992 Marriage to Courtney Love.
August 18, 1992 Birth of daughter Frances Bean Cobain.
March 30, 1994 Visit to the Exodus rehabilitation clinic in Los Angeles, escape from the clinic.
April 5, 1994 Kurt Cobain's date of death according to experts.
April 8, 1994 Kurt Cobain's body was found in the musician's home in Seattle.
April 10, 1994 Cobain's funeral (public farewell ceremony) in Seattle.

Memorable places

1. Grays Harbor Hospital, where Kurt Cobain was born.
2. Kurt Cobain's first house in Aberdeen.
3. The city of Waikiki (Hawaii), on one of whose beaches the wedding of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love took place.
4. Rosevear's Music Center, where Kurt Cobain bought his first guitar.
5. Linda's tavern - the place where Kurt Cobain allegedly visited last time seen alive.
6. Kurt Cobain's house where his body was found.
7. Viretta Park, an unofficial memorial site for Kurt Cobain near his last home in Seattle.
8. Kurt Cobain Memorial Park with a monument to the musician in the city of his childhood in Aberdeen.

Episodes of life

Kurt had a very hard time with his parents' divorce. Once I wrote the following on the bedroom wall: “I hate mom, I hate dad, dad hates mom, mom hates dad, it’s simply impossible not to be sad.” At that time he was only 9 years old.

When the Nevermind album was released in 1991, the songs from it immediately became hits, and the disc received diamond status. This really puzzled Cobain: "I certainly couldn't let my ego admit that we were so big that we deserved so much attention... I felt stupid that there were a lot of bands in the underground scene that were as good as we, or better than us, but for some reason only we attract attention.” An even greater disappointment for Kurt was the received title of “voice of a generation,” which he tried to disown all his life.

Kurt had already attempted suicide a month before his death. During a tour on March 3, he stopped in Rome with his wife and daughter and in the middle of the night he unexpectedly drank 50 Raipnol tablets, washing them down with champagne. Courtney claims to have found Kurt Cobain's suicide note, but did not make it public. By the morning of March 4, Cobain was in a coma; an ambulance took him to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped out. The media at this time erroneously announced the death of the musician. The next day, Cobain came to his senses, swore, asked for yogurt, and left the hospital a few hours later.

Testaments

“You can survive anything if you find the right song.”

“Make your work filled with life, not your life filled with work.”

"I'm not afraid of death. When you die, your soul continues to live and becomes absolutely happy. Complete peace after death, rebirth into someone else - this is the greatest hope of my life.”

Discovery film "The Last 48 Hours of Kurt Cobain"

Condolences

“He was a very aggressive singer and musician, but at the same time he was a very quiet, homely guy. He shouldn’t have left his flat in Aberdeen at all - then everything would have been fine.”
Chris Novoselic, Nirvana musician

“Kurt was pure and incredibly ambitious, whatever he wanted, he got.”
Courtney Love, singer, wife of Kurt Cobain

"I don't think of Kurt as 'Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.' I think of him as just Kurt. This is something that comes back again and again. Almost every day".

“You know, it happens that you meet certain people in life and you understand that they are not destined to live to old age. And, realizing this, you emotionally prepare yourself for this thought in advance. But at the same time, Kurt's death was still a shock to me. I will always remember the hardest day of my life when I woke up in the morning with the thought that my day had begun, but his had not.”
Dave Grohl, former Nirvana drummer, musician

Police in Seattle, Washington, have released text contained in a previously unknown letter from the musician, which he wrote just hours before his death. This note from the soloist cult group was found in his wallet immediately after Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994.

20 years later, Washington state law enforcement agencies finally decided to reveal the contents of Cobain’s suicide note to the general public. She was added to the materials of the case of the musician’s death, which is still not closed. For a long time, the police kept secret the text that was written by the musician before his death. She believes the handwriting on the note is very similar to Kurt Cobain's, but exactly when it was written remains unclear.

Summary of Kurt Cobain's suicide note

Suicide note The singer begins with the wedding vows that the bride and groom traditionally make to each other on the day of the ceremony. But then Kurt Cobain uses profanity to describe his marriage to Courtney Love. He in particular accused his wife of not thinking twice about spending the money he earned on drugs and “fornication.” What exactly did Kurt mean by the last word, he did not explain. Quote from the note:

Are you, Kurt Cobain, ready to accept Courtney Michelle Love as your lawful wife... Even if this bitch with acne is ready to spend all your money on drugs and fornication?

A fragment of the singer’s letter that he wrote before his death

The text of Cobain's new suicide note is radically different from his first message, which was made public earlier. In a previous note, it was written that the musician “feels guilty before his fans and loved ones,” and also admits his feelings for Courtney Love and asks for her forgiveness. The singer's representatives have not yet commented on the second note from the Nirvana lead singer.

Kurt Cobain's death came as a shock to his fans

The Case of Kurt Cobain's Death

Recall that musician Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home on April 8, 1994, three days after his death. According to the official version, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Despite the fact that the case of the death of the Nirvana lead singer is still not closed. One of the detectives working for Courtney Love suggested that the singer’s wife herself could have ordered the crime. However, for now this opinion remains only a version that has not found evidence.

His wife Courtney Love was also among the suspects in the case of the musician's death.

Even after his death, Kurt Cobain earned a sensational amount: his music brought $800 million to copyright holders.

The body of the idol of millions was found by an electrician in the greenhouse above the garage of the house. For almost a quarter of a century, fans, experts and police cannot understand: what happened on that fateful day?

Where is Kurt? I haven't heard from him for three days now. Hitting the doorsteps of drug dens again? Well, of course, there are dozens of them in Seattle - where can you find it now. And after all, he was treated more than once - apparently, again for the old way. Rock star, what can you say, thought 16-year-old Nirvana fan Kate Johnson as she stomped through the streets of Seattle on an April morning in 1994.

On April 8, 1994, she, along with the rest of the world, learns that the body of the idol of millions was found by electrician Gary Smith in the greenhouse above the garage. Blood near the left ear, looks like a suicide note and a gun across the body... Typical suicide?

Later, the cops, on top of everything else, would find a huge dose of heroin in the musician’s blood and find out that he died on April 5. True, with each new fact there are only more questions. Almost a quarter of a century has passed since that day, and the circumstances of the death of the Nirvana leader remain the subject of controversy.

Long before Nirvana

The boy, named Kurt, was born on February 20, 1967 in a small hospital in Washington state. My parents were far from music - my mother was a housewife and my father was an auto mechanic. But Uncle Chuck Fradenburg played in the then famous pop group The Beachcombers, Aunt Mary earned money playing guitar with various groups. And his great-uncle Delbert starred in the film “The King of Jazz” and was one of the most famous tenors of his time in the USA.

The musical environment could not but affect the boy. And my parents didn’t mind, sometimes my mother even sang songs The Beatles before bedtime. Later, Kurt's relatives said that allegedly at the age of two he himself whistled the compositions of the legendary Liverpool Four.

The boy grew up extremely restless. In order to direct his energy somewhere, his aunt gave him a drum set. He was fascinated for a while, but his near inability to concentrate on anything frightened his parents. As a result, the boy was taken to doctors. Kurt was diagnosed with "hyperactivity" and prescribed a three-month course of Ritalin. He later recalled that because of this he allegedly became addicted to psychotropics.

Scandals began in the family. The parents had quarreled before, but they tried to hide it from their children. But, apparently, the moment came when this was no longer possible. As a result, Wendy and Donald divorced when the boy was nine. It would seem that now divorces are very common and fathers leave families, but for Kurt this was a real blow.

I was ashamed of my parents. I couldn’t communicate normally with my classmates because I really wanted to have a typical family: mother, father. “I wanted that certainty, and because of that I was angry with my parents for several years,” he said.

The mother quickly started a new relationship, and, of course, the boy did not become friends with her friend. Attempts to live with his father also led to nothing - Kurt was not going to put up with either his new wife or her two children. He was sure that his father treated them well, and if he behaved even slightly contrary to Donald’s demands, he would immediately receive a slap on the wrist, a scandal, and punishment. The result was that he lived alternately with relatives of his mother and father.

“Mothers, don’t give guitars to your sons”

The boy gave up playing drums at the age of 14 and switched to guitar. My uncle helped me in this matter by giving me an instrument for my birthday - a Gibson Explorer, the price of which was $125. He also found Kurt's first teacher - Warren Mason, a musician from his band.

Mason taught not only how to pluck strings, but also helped instill a real love for rock in general and punk in particular. So, after reading a newspaper article about the Sex Pistols, he began looking for records in hometown Aberdeen, but this turned out to be almost impossible. As a result, my friends somehow found recordings of disgusting quality, of course. But Kurt was sure it was cool. He decided to create his own group, where there would be “a lot of music and screaming.”

By the age of 17, he had many acquaintances with musicians; he was, as they say, “into the party.” But this also had its downsides.

The burden of his family's history transformed Cobain from a seemingly popular student high school into a full-fledged drug addict who got irritated and could get angry almost without reason. This appeared more often in his music and drawings, wrote journalist Charles R. Cross, who was involved in the biography of the Nirvana leader.

Timid attempts to make peace with his mother ended in nothing. What finished off their relationship was that Kurt decided not to go to art college, despite his love for music. More precisely: he decided not to go anywhere at all and not receive a certificate six months before graduation. The mother then said that she needed to go to work. But Kurt didn’t like this idea either. The result is a scandal and another departure from home.

The teenager hung around with friends, spent the night first with them, and then in the courtyards of their houses, went to the library in search of interesting books. I tried to put together my own group - they even recorded six compositions. True, after that Cobain’s friends got tired of it and just left.

What did he live on? Yes, whatever it takes. It ended with him being arrested on May 18, 1986 for drinking alcohol and trespassing. After that, I still had to work. First, as a fitter in one of the Christian organizations. He escaped after a few weeks and became a swimming instructor for children aged 3–7 years.

"Nirvana"

Nirvana."

Kurt and Krist soon formed a band with a drummer friend named Aaron Burkhardt, rehearsing constantly in a room above a downtown beauty salon run by Krist's mother.

It was around then that Cobain became acquainted with heroin. As he later told Details, with adolescence experienced periodic abdominal pain. But the doctors just shrugged their shoulders - no one knows, boy, what’s wrong with you!

He was offered heroin at parties more than once, but Kurt always refused - he was afraid of injections. In March 1987, he moved to Olympia to live with his girlfriend Tracy. In the spring, the pain in my stomach became unbearable.

A local heroin dealer nicknamed Grumpy told him that opiates were the ultimate pain reliever. Krist Novoselic, who was struggling with alcoholism himself at the time, later recalled telling Kurt he was "playing with dynamite" after Kurt called to tell him he had just taken heroin for the first time, wrote Max Wallace and Ian Halperin, authors of Who Killed Kurt Cobain?

"I'll be a star!"

Nirvana" is cool! - Kurt ran through the streets and shouted this phrase.

When Cobain was not making music, he painted: he created surreal landscapes, with fetuses and mutilated animals or... female gynecological diseases, which he found in medical textbooks in the library.

In the United States, alternative music was not widely known, and punk was often not allowed on radio stations. College students listened to grunge, well... best case scenario They performed in seedy clubs.

The founders of the American label Sub Pop were determined to change this. They borrowed money to fly to journalist Everett Trew from the influential London music magazine Melody Maker. And it worked. The interview came out, people started listening to Nirvana. Trew himself later became the “godfather of grunge” and “the man who launched the Nirvana train.”

That's it, the contract with the label has been signed.

“We’ll be cooler than The Beatles,” Cobain said shortly before signing.

This is success

Nirvana" had complete freedom of creativity. This was the main condition for concluding the contract. By the way, other companies offered a million dollars in advance. And this was what was important to Nirvana - freedom.

In September 1991, the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was recorded, which the media immediately proclaimed “the anthem of a generation.”

Mom remembered

Wendy kicked Kurt out of the house when the boy was 17. And she remembered her son when he was 24 years old. Well, as I remembered... I wrote a touching letter. Not to Kurt, but to the local Abedin newspaper.

Kurt, if you happen to read this, we are so proud of you and you are truly one of the most best sons in the world. Please remember to eat your vegetables and brush your teeth, and now [that] you have your own girlfriend, make your bed,” she wrote.

Of course he read it. And he was amazed at the deceitfulness of his own relatives, which he later spoke about more than once in interviews.

"My Yoko"

Nirvana has been compared to the Beatles more than once. At first, Kurt was even flattered by this. John Lennon once admitted that his beloved Yoko Ono appeared out of nowhere - she just came and stayed. Cobain's friends remembered approximately the same thing about the dyed blonde Courtney Love. They even called her Yoko behind her back. By the way, she was two years older than Cobain.

The parents literally shared the baby when she was gone and four years. On the one hand, a mother with her ever-changing husbands. On the other hand, her father was a musician, who gladly took her to concerts and even to parties with friends. Courtney recalled trying LSD at age three.

This continued until the girl was seven. In 1972, the girl’s mother, Linda Carroll, announced that she was leaving with her new husband to the farm to raise sheep.

“It’s easier than raising a daughter,” she muttered.

Courtney lived for some time with her mother’s friend, a doctor by profession. The woman was bringing the baby out of almost drug addiction. They visited their mother periodically. By 1977, her mother and her new husband returned to Oregon, and Courtney began living with them.

There was no talk of any upbringing - the girl simply refused to listen to what they told her. Then I started stealing. When the cops caught her again, either with lipstick or with a cheap T-shirt, the mother asked the police to “punish her to the fullest.” The girl was even sent to a special school. True, educational measures had an effect reverse effect- she ended up in the company of the main hooligans, which she later wrote to her father about. In the letter, she also asked to be taken away from “this terrible place.” The father was able to obtain custody of his 15-year-old daughter and finally took her in 1980.

In a couple of years, her father will go abroad, and she will start working as a stripper. In the mid-80s she will try out as an actress. And immediately for the role of Nancy, the lover of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in Alex Cox’s film Sid and Nancy. Instead, she got the role of Nancy's friend.

In parallel with all this, I tried to assemble my own group. The teams got together, but broke up literally after recording the first demo. Note that she mastered the guitar only in 1989.

At the same time, she advertised in the popular Los Angeles music directory Recycler that she was putting together a group. Happened. Hole Group. Courtney herself lightened up and began a new look, which she would soon call kinderwhore ("teen slut").

In January 1990, Courtney came with a friend to a club for a Nirvana concert. It so happened that they accidentally ran into Cobain. What happened next - there are two versions. According to one of them, she called his songs crazy, after which a fight broke out, which almost turned into violent sex.

On the other hand, she compared him with another musician, which offended Kurt. He pushed the girl out of anger, she stumbled and fell. Cobain helped her up...

But then the story did not end anywhere. They started dating only in 1991, accidentally bumping into each other at another concert.

There's drugs between us

By that time, Kurt had begun to use heroin not “occasionally,” but “periodically,” as American journalists indicate in his biographies.

Before his relationship with Courtney, he had already tried heroin several times, says Kurt's longtime friend Alice Wheeler, a photographer. “But she clearly used the drug as bait to control him.”

She insisted that Cobain became addicted to drugs in front of her and Courtney benefited from this.

Courtney knew that the more drugs he took, the less likely he would be able to come to his senses and leave her, said Kurt's friend, Dylan Carlson.

The Nirvana leader himself claimed that he became addicted to heroin when Courtney was on tour in Europe with her band Hole.

Wedding with Courtney

“I’ve changed a lot,” Kurt told Sassy magazine in January 1992, “and I can’t believe it’s possible to be happier than I am now.”

In the same interview, he admitted for the first time that he recently became engaged to Courtney Love. The bride was two months pregnant at that time.

They had their wedding ceremony in February in Hawaii. Krist Novoselic did not come to it: he did not explain for what reason. However, Cobain’s friend never hid that he did not approve of his choice. There were no relatives of the young people at the wedding.

Some of his friends, including Dylan Carlson, say that it was pregnancy that gave Kurt the idea of ​​proposing.

Courtney took " maternity leave" in Group.

By August 1992, when their daughter Frances was born, the couple was already considered a real rock and roll couple, darlings of the media. Journalists called it a miracle that the child was born healthy.

In the meantime

When I met Courtney, when I tried to sign a contract with her, all she did was criticize her husband all the time. She said Hole was much better than Nirvana,” Madonna recalls.

The story took place in 1993. Then new studio Madonna's Maverick was considering signing with Hole.

As a result, the signing with this studio was delayed. The contract was signed with Geffen, Nirvana's label.

For years, Courtney boasted that she had a better recording contract than her husband, notes the book Who Killed Kurt Cobain?

Life is getting better

“Holding my baby is my drug,” Cobain happily said in interviews in 1993.

Then another extremely joyful event happened. The doctors finally figured out why Kurt was experiencing extreme pain in his abdomen and stomach. As it turned out, he had scoliosis since childhood, which caused pinching of the abdominal nerves. As it turns out, this can all be treated.

In many interviews over the course of last year Throughout his life, Kurt said that the pain was so excruciating that it made him want to “put a bullet in his forehead.”

After the discovery of Kurt’s body, his friends remembered the following words in January (1994) Rolling interview Stone.

My stomach just doesn’t bother me anymore,” Cobain exulted. - I can eat. Last night I ate a huge pizza. It's so great that I can do this. And it only makes me feel better.

But the relationship with Courtney went wrong. Acquaintances more than once recalled that she insulted him, and in public.

She's out of control. “She will find or create trouble anywhere,” Nirvana frontman pal Ted Doyle said in a 1994 interview with Melody Maker.

The police were called to the Cobain house several times - it later turned out that the couple had been arguing. Love subsequently claimed that Kurt's drug use was the main source of their marital problems.

Last month

Nirvana" died of an overdose.

He was taken to the hospital, he did not regain consciousness for 20 hours, and then... woke up and asked for a milkshake with strawberries! As it later turned out, he lost consciousness after mixing tranquilizers with alcohol.

When he came to his senses and returned home, he never stopped taking heroin. After death, experts found a dose of the drug three times higher than that at which a person can generally survive. Could he have reached the weapon himself...

The version of Cobain's murder appeared a week after his death. American journalists published memoirs of friends who talked about problems in the family and that in the event of a divorce, Courtney would be left with nothing. It was self-interest that was considered the main motive for murder.

The craziest fans didn’t even rule out that Courtney shot Cobain with a gun at his request - supposedly he couldn’t suffer like that anymore due to health problems.

Cobain's grandfather, Leland Cobain, publicly stated that Kurt was the victim of murder.

The version of suicide is often not believed due to the fact that the leader of Nirvana allegedly could not reach the gun due to the huge dose of heroin in his body. But researcher Bradley Spears noted in 1995 that Cobain could not use drugs at once, but “roll in” several doses during the day. In addition, he could also use morphine. In this case, there was an opportunity to commit suicide.

Anyway, official reason Cobain's death is considered a suicide.

In gun suicides, you always see the victim still clutching the barrel of the gun. This happens because at the moment of death the hand freezes. We literally had to rip that rifle out of Cobain's hands. The markings of the gun were still visible on his hands where he had been clutching them for days, assistant medical examiner Nicholas Hartshorne, who performed Cobain's autopsy, told reporters.

Note that on Kurt’s paternal side there were three suicides - two uncles and a great-grandmother. This fact was not hidden from him in childhood. And the boy calmly told his school friends about him.