This past month, February 20th, marked what would have been the 47th birthday of the late rock star Kurt Cobain. You may know him as the lead singer of the popular grunge band Nirvana from back in the 90’s. It has now been almost two decades since the passing of this once legendary rock superstar, yet even today, there still remains questions and a fog of doubt over the case of his death. Kurt Cobain was married to rock goddess, Courtney Love, who was the frontwoman for a band named Hole. The couple had a baby girl together named Frances Bean. Kurt Cobain had a quick rise to fame when Nirvana, which was a part of the underground, punk, grunge scene of the 90’s in Seattle, became the opening act for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The distraught rocker did not cope well with his instant rise to fame, and often times had trouble dealing with the amount of attention that he began to receive.
The young lead for Nirvana died at the age of 27, allegedly from suicide by a shotgun to the head. Cobain had suffered from mental disorders and drug addiction throughout most of his life, so it was forseen as a potential future possibility, that an incident such as this, would have occurred. Furthermore he had been suffering from a stomach condition that he had never received treatment for, which caused him tremendous pain, suffered from chronic bronchitis, and was later diagnosed with ADHD, Bi-Polar Disorder, and alcoholism and heroin addiction. According to his cousin Beverly, along with all these other factors that could have led to his eventual demise, she also pointed out the family history of suicide, mental illness, and alcoholism.
A major contributor to Cobain’s self-suffering was his heavy addiction to heroin. He had originally started using in 1986, and slowly over the years began to use it with more frequency. His habit worsened when Nirvana was on their Nevermind tour because Cobain claimed that while he was on it, it was one of the few times that the pain from his stomach would ever feel at ease. Cobain later went to rehab in 1992 to try and kick the habit. After going through another tour with the band, he went right back to using heroin until his wife arranged an intervention on March 25, 1994. It was only a day or two after being admimtted to the center that Cobain jumped the six-foot-high fence that surrounded the facility and escaped.
His friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts, but on April 2, 1994, he was spotted in several places around the Seattle area. His wife hired a private investigator, Tom Grant, to try and track down Cobain. With the search ending in futile disappointment, Cobain was not seen until a few days later when an electrician came to his home to install a security system. The electrician found Cobain’s body in the Greenhouse of his home with a shotgun still gripped in his hand. It was determined that the body had been there for a few days, and the time of death was sometime on April 5, 1994. A handwritten suicide note was found next to his body that told of his loss of the will to live. “I have a goddess of a wife, who sweats ambition and empathy, and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function. I can’t stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I’ve become” (Kurt Cobain, Kurt Cobain’s Suicide Note).
The conspiracy theory about his deathclaims that his wife, Courtney Love, actually played a role in his suicide. Tom Grant, the private investigator, who had been still working for Love when Cobain’s body was found feels strongly that the evidence he found points to a possible homicide, rather than a suicide. There are many elements of the case that Grant claims “just does not add up,” some such factors were the levels of heroin in Cobain’s bloodstream, which Grant believed would have hindered him to be unable to properly work a shotgun in such a fashion.
While conducting further research for Love, Grant had been able to have access to Cobain’s suicide note. After examining, he believes that the note was speaking of Cobain’s intent to leave Love. Cobain and Love had a strained relationship at that point of their lives, both were heavily using drugs, and apparently had an almost violent relationship. There was an incident, while on tour in Rome, where Cobain had almost overdosed and Love had claimed that it was a suicide attempt. Two journalists named Ian Halperin and Max Wallace felt something was amiss, so they looked further into the case and contacted the doctor who had treated Cobain after this incident. The doctor backed the story, but did not say the same amount of drug was injested that Love claimed in the story. A possibility that has been discussed is that Love may have mixed in a large amount of the Rohypnol pills that Cobain had been taking into the Champlain he had been drinking. Other possibilities suggested that Love may have played a role in his death. After searching further into the topic, Grant had found Rosemary Carroll, Cobain’s attorney, who revealed that Cobain had not struck her as being suicidal, and not to long before the incident, he had drawn up a will to exclude Love from any possessions for he had been planning on divorcing her.
There is no hard enough evidence to prove any of the conspiracies behind the possibility of his death besides many coincidences and possible leads. However, enough is left unsolved and unsaid, which is why the case is constantly brought up. Kurt Cobain had been an American music scene hero, and a voice of a generation. He had a quick rise to stardom, a dark burnout, and a gory demise. His influence to the musical world will live on as his legend. Suicide, or a distraught lover gone rogue? The world may never truly know.