Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love Pt. 2: Suicide Samurai

Grunge, grief, the Grateful Dead and a “teenage whore.” Part 2 of the Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love story picks up with Courtney’s ascent and the couple’s heroin-hazed pregnancy. An escape from rehab and a punk as f*ck group hug for Gen X. This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including suicide. If you’re thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. To see a full list of contributors, visit disgracelandpod.com. https://www.disgracelandpod.com/ This episode was originally published on March 19, 2019. Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch https://cms.megaphone.fm/organizations/c83125d2-8508-11ed-bd28-ff0aff7ee233/podcasts/efca2ef8-85f9-11ed-8fe3-bb208936046f/episodes/d117e93e-5e36-11ef-8745-5373bae4c0ff/www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch! Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER https://mailchi.mp/doubleelvis/disgraceland-email-newsletter Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/disgracelandpod/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@disgracelandpod X https://twitter.com/disgracelandpod (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/491024204626127/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:12Jake Brennan?

  All right, guys, welcome into this week's rewind episode of DisgraceLand. We are getting into our Nirvana story this weekend, and we released these episodes originally back in March of 2019. I gotta say, when they were released, I was shocked. I was legitimately shocked at the reaction, the blowback from people who really believed that Kurt Cobain did not commit suicide. It was so strong that it forced me to dig back into the research and see if I missed anything, and I came out the other side, and I still believe what I believed when these were originally released and written.

• 2:53Jake Brennan?

  You know, Courtney Love, think what you might about her. I do not believe she is a killer, despite what some documentaries might say. When you look at the actual evidence, including evidence from a so-called study that came out in February of 2026, it got a lot of hype, a lot of news. We looked at all of that and came to the same conclusion. Kurt Cobain was a deeply tormented artist. Courtney Love is a deeply complicated person and artist, and their story is tragic. The story of Nirvana is singular in the history of rock and roll, and these two episodes

• 3:35Jake Brennan?

  reflect those two points. Releasing them again now for a specific reason. There's a Courtney Love documentary coming, I don't know when, in the next couple of months, at some point. And I think, I think what I want to do is I want to hear from you guys and hear what you think on this story. Do you still, after listening to both of these episodes, still believe that Kurt's death was not the official cause? Suicide, death by suicide? Or do you believe something nefarious happened? I want to know, 617-906-6638. Voicemail and text to let me know, at DisgraceLandPod on the socials, [email protected]. And based on the reaction I get from you guys, I might end up taking a deeper look

• 4:19Jake Brennan?

  into the so-called conspiracy theorists who believe that something else was at play. We'll get into that later. Here's part two of the Nirvana story.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information.

• 4:49Jake Brennan?

  DisgraceLand is a production of Double Elvis.

• 5:08Jake Brennan?

  The story about Kurt Cobain, his state of mind and his relationship with his wife, Courtney Love, is so complex that two episodes were needed to properly tell this story. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to DisgraceLand episode 25, part one of the Kurt and Courtney story, where we discuss Kurt's childhood, the rise of his band Nirvana, and his hooking up with the love of his life, Courtney Love. In this episode, we finally get around to some great Courtney Love music. Unlike the music played at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Swinging Shotgun Rhythm BK1."

• 5:48Jake Brennan?

  I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "The Sign" by Ace of Base. And why would I play you that specific slice of Neo Abba cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 1, 1994, and that was the day Kurt Cobain jumped over the six-foot wall at Exodus Recovery Center and escaped rehab, setting off a series of events that will put an end to what was, at that point, rock and roll's first family of grunge. On this episode, swinging shotguns, Neo Abba cheese, a rehab breakup, Courtney Love, and Kurt Cobain. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 6:53Jake Brennan?

  Despite what you think of Courtney Love, she was, for a minute anyway, punk as fuck, especially if we define punk as a particular type of rebellion, one that sits at the nexus of aggression, authenticity, anarchy, and the relentless pursuit of freedom and indulgence. It's unsurprising because Courtney Love was raised around the most punk band of all time, The Grateful Dead. I know, you're ready to bang the unsubscribe button and throw your phone against the wall because your one-time favorite podcaster just called The Grateful Dead punk. Thing is, I'm right. As a band, The Grateful Dead, a band that I care little for, by the way, did exactly what they wanted to do, only when they wanted to do it, and always, always on their own terms.

• 7:37Jake Brennan?

  For whatever they lacked in aggression, they made up for in authenticity, anarchy, and the relentless pursuit of freedom and indulgence. Ever been to a parking lot outside of a Dead show? Something tells me that anarchy and indulgence fit the bill. And as a band, nobody could ever tell the Dead what to do. They did whatever the fuck they wanted and succeeded at it. They had exactly one top 10 single over a 30-year career, and that single was more than 20 years into their career, yet, through the strength of their authenticity, connected with one of the largest, most fervent, and commercially consequential fanbases of all time, and they did it themselves with next to no help from their record label. And what's more punk than that?

• 8:18Jake Brennan?

  They also did a ton of drugs, in particular insanely powerful LSD. Courtney Love was born Courtney Michelle Harrison in San Francisco on July 9, 1964. By the time she was five years old, the hippie movement in San Fran's famed Haight-Ashbury district was in full swing. Her father, Hank Harrison, was college buds with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. And back when they were called the Warlocks, Courtney's dad managed The Grateful Dead. His management stint was short-lived, but Hank, his wife, and his dirty blonde baby girl hung around the Dead, constantly taking advantage of the relentless pursuit of freedom and indulgence offered during the Summer of Love. They partook in orgies and experimented with whatever drugs came their way, especially

• 9:03Jake Brennan?

  LSD. Eventually, Courtney's mom had had enough and split for Oregon with her girl. In her child custody battle with Hank, she testified that Hank gave LSD to Courtney as an infant. Heavy, like the music Courtney would eventually create, but only after managing to claw and scrape her way through a childhood that was just as dysfunctional as her eventual husband's. Custody battles, foster parents, sexual abuse, reform school, a brief, semi-successful run at Hollywood, appearing in Alex Cox's critically acclaimed Sid and Nancy from 1986, and his follow-up, Straight to Hell in 1987, to eventually working her way around a stripper's pole in Alaska, then back to LA to stripping at jumbos down on Hollywood Boulevard to

• 9:48Jake Brennan?

  save enough money for a nose job in order to get a record deal, her reasoning, not mine, to landing a deal with Caroline Records, to eventually getting herself into the position to take her unique talents, experience, sex appeal, outsized personality, and new nose into a recording studio with her new female-dominated band she created called Hole. The result, as stated before, was, in a word, heavy. Hole's debut 1991 album, Pretty on the Inside, is a bombastic and sludgy Gen X blast that basically says one thing. I'm Courtney Love. You've never heard or seen anything like me before, so buckle up because shit's about to get exciting. Is that one thing or three things? Doesn't matter.

• 10:30Jake Brennan?

  Literally, the first thing you hear on the record is Courtney's vocal over a distorted mid-tempo doom riff with lyrics that imagine an argument between mother and daughter. The sting of Courtney's childhood was front and center. It wasn't going anywhere, and neither was she. Courtney Love was impossible to ignore.

• 10:49Jake Brennan?

  At least that's what Kurt Cobain thought. Within 30 seconds of meeting her in a dank Portland club, he was tussling on the beer-soaked floor with her, wrestling playfully over some bullshit comment Courtney made while Kurt was loading his gear in before a Nirvana gig. Something about how he looked like Dave Perner from Soul Asylum. To Kurt, "them's" was fighting words. So things got physical. It turned Kurt on. It left an impression. One that Kurt was eager to explore the next time their paths crossed on the road in the UK. Courtney on the road with Hole, Kurt with Nirvana, and then again stateside in Chicago, where they eventually got around to giving in to that building sexual tension. They both fell hard and fast. It was October of 1991, right in the midst of Nirvana's ascent via the release of Nevermind.

• 11:34Jake Brennan?

  The two were married in February 1992, and voila, rock and roll royalty.

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• 12:58Jake Brennan?

  In the early 1990s, you couldn't get more mainstream than Vanity Fair magazine. Comprised of A-list contributors like Dominic Dunn, star-making photographers like Herb Ritz and Annie Leibowitz, and helmed by genius editors Tina Brown and Graydon Carter, the high-gloss mag both projected and reflected American culture. But what set it apart from other mainstream outlets, in addition to the quality of its content, was its willingness to brazenly wade into the waters of high society and celebrity scandal. In 1992, Vanity Fair was covered monthly by the images of mega-celebrities like Kevin Costner, Jack Nicholson, and Princess Diana, boasting articles such as Norman Mailer on Oliver Stone's JFK, Fran Leibowitz on money, and Nick Toshess on Ed Sullivan.

• 13:43Jake Brennan?

  Not to mention the steady stream of aristocratic scandal covered by Dominic Dunn. The cover of the September issue featured Gina Davis riding high on the sails of her 92-star turn alongside Tom Hanks and Madonna in A League of Their Own. The cover also promised prospective readers insight into Gore Vidal, Camille Paglia, and Courtney Love. The article, on the recently-wed grunge queen to a reluctant voice-of-a-generation husband was, to Courtney anyway, supposed to be like all the other articles. A blow-up, celebrating her outrageous sense of now, her arrival on the scene in the Gen X takeover of a tired mainstream culture, with Courtney Love leading the charge, of course. Because when you got right down to it, who was more able or deserving?

• 14:27Jake Brennan?

  Courtney was fearless, unafraid to say or do anything, and her band was the shit. Hole had been the subject of intense courting by the major record labels. Indeed, the first full-fledged bidding war over an unsigned female-fronted band. Clive Davis and Rick Rubin lined up and were sent packing. The deal Courtney was striking was to become mold-breaking in its financial favorability for the artist, a female artist, her. A fact she took deserved pride in pushing into the face of any and all who brought the deal up in her presence. "Sure, Mr. Sexist Label Suit and Tie Guy, you want to imply that my rock star husband is co-writing my songs because I'm a woman and I'm unable to do it myself? Then fuck you very much, the cost of my publishing just went up.

• 15:09Jake Brennan?

  And okay, Mr. Rock Journalist Dude, with your goatee, your mall-bot leather and reader-tested, editor-approved list of boring questions, you want to ask me about my influences or what my thoughts are on grunge? My thoughts are it's a joke, just like you, and my influences are twofold, my interlabia and my outerlabia. Those are my influences. Fuck off."

• 15:31Jake Brennan?

  This was the sort of interview fans of Courtney Love had grown used to in 1992, and most journalists were either too hapless or too horrified to affect anything different. Not that they necessarily wanted to. At the end of the day, it made for good copy, and good copy made for good sales, so it was a dance worth doing for both parties. Rock mags shrugged off Courtney's exhibitionist act and played along while Courtney left a trail of burning expletives singeing the pages of rock magazines everywhere. But Vanity Fair wasn't a rock magazine, it was Vanity Fair, and this game of shock that Courtney Love was playing was far less interesting than the shocking truth behind the life she and Kurt Cobain were living. The truth was that they were barely living.

• 16:12Jake Brennan?

  The truth was that they were heavily addicted to heroin, despite being pregnant. To Vanity Fair, it wasn't entertaining, it wasn't funny, it wasn't safe, it wasn't even legal, it was gross, dangerous, and in need of being exposed. In the interview, Courtney's normal bombast, total lack of humility, and name-dropping are all on display. Off-putting qualities to any sane person that are ultimately balanced out by the details surrounding her vanguard style, fearless feminism, and quote-machine motor mouth. You're quickly reminded that she's a rock star's rock star, and oh yeah, isn't that why we're reading about her in the first place? Until the article wades into the salacious details surrounding her and her rock star husband's heroin habit.

• 16:53Jake Brennan?

  A habit that has 20 unnamed industry sources quoted, and the couple is being heavily into heroin. A habit Courtney actually boasts about while recounting her whirlwind marriage to Kurt, saying, quote, "We went on a binge," referring to their time in New York City during Kurt's first SNL appearance. Another quote, "We did a lot of drugs, we got pills, and then we went down to Alphabet City, and Kurt wore a hat. I wore a hat, and we copped some dope, and then we got high and went to SNL. After that, I did heroin for a couple of months." The only problem with the quote was that a few paragraphs earlier in the article, Courtney explained that she had been pregnant when Kurt proposed, and when they were married in Hawaii, and that that happened before the SNL gig, and thus before the months-long

• 17:38Jake Brennan?

  heroin binge she bragged about, and thus she was doing heroin while pregnant.

• 17:44Jake Brennan?

  When the article hit newsstands, holy hell broke out. The press revolted. No more fucking around. The safety of a kid was at risk. Articles popped up everywhere condemning the rock star couple's behavior. Kurt and Courtney went into a warlike posture, denied everything, claimed Vanity Fair misquoted them, made the story up to sell magazines. Vanity Fair stood by their writer Lynn Hershberg. The couple threatened to sue and drew into themselves, became super-guarded and distrustful of all media. They phoned in violent threats to writers of follow-up pieces they believed perpetuated Vanity Fair's so-called lies. The story became unavoidable, and Courtney Love became a household name before her major label album was even released.

• 18:25Jake Brennan?

  Los Angeles Children's Services opened an investigation and removed Kurt and Courtney's newborn baby, Frances Bean, from their custody after she was born, fearing for her safety. Courtney's sister was given temporary custody, and the couple was unable to visit with their newborn baby alone. After several months of drug tests, Kurt and Courtney regained custody, but not before the whole episode took its toll on Kurt, who, his whole life, longed for a family, a sense of home. And here it was, at long last, only to be broken up by someone else's hand. The pain was familiar, as was the shame, and Kurt would never recover from it.

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• 20:12Jake Brennan?

  Kurt and Courtney marveled at the sonogram. There she was, her fingers and toes were all there. And Kurt swore that their child had just flashed the devil horn rock salute as she floated, suspended, in utero. Thank fucking god, everything was gonna be okay. At home, it was a different story. Throughout her pregnancy, Courtney did her best to stay clean, but it was a struggle. Especially because Kurt was using heroin and high every day. He looked like shit. His face was pale and marked with scabs that he absently picked out with dirty fingernails. His pupils were pinpoints. At least he had the decency to shoot up out of her sight, so she wouldn't be tempted. Courtney was determined to stay healthy, to prove the press wrong, and to give birth

• 20:57Jake Brennan?

  to a healthy baby, and that meant she needed to avoid Kurt as much as possible. When Courtney went into labor on August 18th, 1992, Kurt was already at LA Cedar Sinai Medical Center. He'd checked himself in earlier that month to detox off smack for the birth of his child. You know, like most first-time dads. The gurney was rickety, uncomfortable, as was the hospital gown, cheap and coarse on Courtney's skin. She wailed, her insides twisted. Where the fuck was Kurt? Courtney bounced off the gurney in her paper slippers and began waddling throughout the hospital in search of her junkie husband. If she could go through the pain of labor, his skinny ass could go through the pain of heroin withdrawals to witness the birth of their first child.

• 21:40Jake Brennan?

  Courtney later said of the ordeal, "I'm having the baby, it's coming, and Kurt's puking, he's passing out, and I'm holding his hand and rubbing his stomach while the baby's coming out of me." After the ordeal was over, Courtney could laugh about it, but in the moment, she needed him, and he wasn't there. In body, maybe, yes, but not much else. This level of commitment for Kurt would continue as the couple set about raising their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. After finally gaining legal custody, it didn't take Kurt long to get back into his habit. On Frances Bean's first birthday, he nodded off, comatose on heroin while holding his baby in his lap. Courtney tried to get him to wake up and engage to celebrate, but he couldn't.

• 22:24Jake Brennan?

  He was tired, he reasoned, as if his wife, left to do the heavy lifting of rearing an infant, wasn't. But of course, Courtney was exhausted, and frankly, tired of her husband's bullshit. She took a good, long look at Kurt, thought for a second of their future, and then turned her attention back to her daughter. Distracted, for the moment, anyway. Kurt continued to be distracted as well, but not just by heroin. He had a record to make, a follow-up to Nevermind. He holed up in the studio with legendary punk rock producer Steve Albini. Kurt was stoked. With Albini behind the board, the snares would sound like shotguns, the solos like shredding power tools, and the screams like they were meant to. Raw and honest. Albini liked to have fun in the studio.

• 23:07Jake Brennan?

  Prank-calling rock stars was the game. Their target? Heartthrob Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, who Kurt had a special hatred for. Dando's matinee good looks had been plastered over countless magazines, and the dude, to Kurt's estimation, seemed to be enjoying it just a little too much. It was an affront to his punk rock sensibility. Plus, Courtney was into him, Kurt just knew it. Somehow, they got the number to where Dando was staying on tour. They dialed, Dando answered. They told him they were calling from Madonna's publicity office, and that Madonna was very interested in speaking with him, in meeting up. And I mean, come on, why wouldn't Madonna want to meet up with him, Dando reasoned? It was perfectly plausible. So Dando waited, stewing.

• 23:52Jake Brennan?

  On the other end, Kurt, Albini, and Dave Grohl suppressed their laughter while Dando cooled his jets impatiently, contemplating the wild sexual future he was about to have with his teenage fantasy. And the more they made him wait, the funnier it got. And the more they tried to hold their laughs, the more their guts felt like they were gonna split. Dando was losing it on the other end by now. "Where is she? Hurry up, man, I'm gonna start beating off." Albini told him they were gonna have to call him back, and hung up before giving up the joke. They all laughed uncontrollably. But laughs for Kurt were seldom during the time of in utero. And Evan Dando wasn't the only alterner frontman that Kurt felt threatened by. There were rumors Courtney was unfaithful to him while he was on the road. Kurt could sense what was really going on.

• 24:35Jake Brennan?

  Despite whatever jealousy roiled through him, or what Courtney did or didn't hold over his head, Kurt could feel that the drugs and the distance of being a touring musician were pulling him apart from his wife, despite the love that was at their core. It was all bullshit. Courtney never cheated on him. She's quoted as saying, "I almost cheated on him one time. I almost did one time, and he knew it. I have no idea how he knew it. The plan didn't ever go anywhere, nothing happened, but the response to it was he took 67 roofennols and ended up in a coma because I thought about cheating on him. I mean, fuck." Somehow, while on tour in Germany in support of in utero, it all became too much for Kurt. He was reeling from the rumored infidelity and at loose ends from being away from home.

• 25:20Jake Brennan?

  With two shows left for the tour, Kurt up and quit, canceled the final concerts after ending his last set with a scorching version of Heart Shaped Box. After the show, he called his lawyer to say he wanted to divorce Courtney. Confused and hurt, he jumped on a plane to meet Courtney and Frances in Rome. The plan was to give it another shot, try to save his family, save his home. Kurt sat on the plane in silence, shell-shocked, stoned. He had booted himself up with heroin before arriving at the airport, and he'd be high enough to stave off the itch during the flight. But fighting off the gnawing feeling in his gut, the feeling that he was losing his wife, his family, well, that was another story entirely. It was all Kurt could think of. Courtney with some other dude.

• 26:04Jake Brennan?

  The thought of it sickened him, literally. He felt the nausea coming up on him from his seat in first class, but somehow managed to keep it down. Stupidly, Kurt hadn't brought anything to occupy himself with for the flight. No book, no magazine, just a head full of jealousy and a heart full of shame. He sat quietly. To pass the time, he did his best to recount the lyrics to Black Flag's "My War," but instead, somehow kept finding his way to the lyrics for Black Flag's "Jealous Again." It was torture. Finally, the plane landed.

• 26:44Jake Brennan?

  Kurt arrived at the Excelsior Hotel Rome early. He went full romance, roses, chocolates, champagne, candles. He'd win her back. He'd loved her, and she loved him, despite whatever bullshit she'd been up to. And besides, it's not like he'd been a model husband and father, and at the end of the day, they both loved Frances Bean. They were a family, they made a home, and it was worth saving. When Courtney and the baby arrived, things didn't go as Kurt planned. After she put the baby to bed and the couple finished their room service dinner, an exhausted Courtney rolled over and promptly passed out. The teary, joyful reunion that Kurt had envisioned wasn't happening. Didn't she love him? Didn't she want to be with him? What was wrong with her? Something was off.

• 27:29Jake Brennan?

  Kurt decided, she smelled different. He could smell something different about her, someone else's smell on her, he was sure of it, and it wouldn't go away. Kurt drifted in and out of sleep, and each time he woke, that foreign smell was right there, plain as day, fucking with him, daring him to face the obvious. The deep, dark, dirty mirror, the one that would reflect the truth, the truth that his home had been busted up, it was all over. With the hotel room dark and quiet, and his wife and baby sound asleep, Kurt Cobain wrote a letter. "My doctor says that, like Hamlet, I need to choose life or death." He put the pen down and shook 60 roofennols out of an amber bottle. He stuffed them into his mouth and downed them with the last of the champagne.

• 28:13Jake Brennan?

  He then picked up the pen and wrote, "I'm choosing death."

• 28:35Jake Brennan?

  The press reported the Rome incident as an accidental overdose, but for Courtney, the truth was unavoidable and scary as fuck. Kurt Cobain hated himself and wanted to die. Kurt and Courtney returned to the States. An intervention was arranged for Kurt, and it didn't take. Rehab was next. Kurt flew in from Seattle and checked into LA's Exodus Center. But first, he hit up Stan Baker Sports on Lake City Way and purchased a 20-gauge shotgun and a round of shells. Rehab lasted 72 hours. Kurt called and purchased a plane ticket back to Seattle, jumped the wall, bailed. The flight was crowded, Kurt was late to board for his class.

• 29:19Jake Brennan?

  Shit, is that? It was. Kurt was seated next to another junkie rock star from Seattle, and despite what he would have preferred, there was nothing he could do about it. So Kurt Cobain, junkie singer of the biggest band in the world at the time, took a seat next to Seattle native Duff McKagan, junkie bass player for the second biggest band in the world at the time, Guns N' Roses.

• 29:44Jake Brennan?

  Duff was friendly and cool, as was his nature. Two traits that separated him from the singer in his band, Axl Rose, who Kurt and Courtney hated with the power of a thousand burning suns. Duff didn't care. He saw in Kurt a kindred spirit. They ordered drinks and the conversation was easy. Duff made small talk about the tour G and R had just completed, and Kurt was open about escaping rehab. Heroin didn't come up, but it was on both of their minds. Duff knew Kurt was down. Seated next to him, his depression was palpable. Upon landing, Duff decided to invite Kurt to come hang, maybe lift his spirits. But by the time he got around to asking, Kurt was in his limo and off in search of oblivion.

• 30:27Jake Brennan?

  He headed to the heart of the city's junky thoroughfare, Aurora Avenue. The Marco Polo on Aurora was an $18 a night motel room in a home away from home for Kurt. Despite the fact that he had just purchased a million dollar mansion off of Lake Washington in one of Seattle's more expensive neighborhoods, right next to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Kurt couldn't hang in the house, especially not without Courtney and Francis, who were back in LA. The house was too big, too ostentatious, too much of what Axl Rose would have preferred. Not punk enough. So 226 at the Marco Polo suited him just fine. Plus, scoring dope down on Aurora was a cinch. So that's what Kurt did. He got high, and then he got high some more.

• 31:10Jake Brennan?

  And eventually, he made his way back home and then wandered back out downtown to make a half-assed attempt at socializing, connecting, but ultimately just to score more dope. Back in LA, Courtney was furious, frightened. Kurt had escaped rehab on the heels of a suicide attempt in Rome and was now unaccountable for somewhere in Seattle and up to what she did not know but feared the worst. Courtney hired her private detective to locate her husband. Kurt was wandering through the city in a haze. He hit Linda's Tavern down on East Pine, a familiar dive where he knew he'd be recognized, but at least treated with the appropriate amount of deference. And who knows, maybe he'd even talk to some people and actually enjoy himself. He didn't. He wandered in and then out, and then into a cab

• 31:54Jake Brennan?

  and back to his mansion in search of the shotgun and the shells he purchased a few days earlier.

• 32:00Jake Brennan?

  The first song Kurt Cobain ever recorded is called Suicide Samurai. From his earliest days, he was obsessed with suicide. In his journals as a boy, he'd written suicide notes to his imaginary friend. In his band's lyrics, he teased out the concept over and over again. "In utero" was ripe with not so subtle hints.

• 32:25Jake Brennan?

  The concept of death by his own hand was a constant, and it was very much on his mind on April 5th, 1994, as he made his way from the main house on his grounds to the living quarters of the garage adjacent it. Shotgun in one hand, box of shells in the other. Suicide, all he could think of.

• 32:43Jake Brennan?

  The pain was too much. The heroin addiction was destroying him. He knew it. It was eating away at him and pushing his wife and child away. He wanted to quit, but it was impossible. Quit and do what? Be normal? Or what was normal, anyway? Besides, if he quit, it's not like anything would change. He'd still be depressed. He'd still be famous. He'd still find little joy in making music. Music, it used to be everything. Being in a band, making records kids like him wanted to listen to. That was literally all there was. He set out to do it, and he did it. But when it finally happened for him, success and fame, it was hollow, just like him. He thought he'd build a home for himself, and he did, but it was coming apart in adulthood, just like it had throughout his childhood.

• 33:28Jake Brennan?

  Nothing worked. Everything sucked, and there was no way of seeing himself out. He was rejected from his family, from the joy of making music and from the home he'd attempted to make. Kurt found himself sitting on the linoleum floor of the living quarters above his garage. Shotgun at his one side. On the other side, his works, a needle, a spoon, and $100 worth of Black Tower heroin. He took the suicide note he penned earlier that morning and placed it away from the mess he was about to make. He'd brought towels for that, for the blood, for whoever would find him. So punk rock. He loaded the shotgun with the shells, and then he loaded the needle with the smack. He injected it into his arm and felt the familiar tease of oblivion.

• 34:12Jake Brennan?

  But this time, Kurt would not be denied. Sweet relief was in his sights. He put the barrel to the roof of his mouth, and then...

• 34:24Jake Brennan?

  it was over.

• 34:28Jake Brennan?

  Suicide is something you're never ready for. It's so hyper foreign to most of us who aren't depressed, who may be troubled or unhappy or stressed, but still have the fight in us. We get up every day and put one foot in front of the other, despite how hard things get. It's literally our nature to do so. Which is exactly what makes it so hard to understand how someone else can quote unquote "give up." It's so hard to see coming.

• 34:56Jake Brennan?

  After Kurt's body was found a couple of days later, Courtney flew to Seattle. She landed into a media circus. The Cobain Love home was surrounded by grieving fans and cable news trucks. Among this mayhem, Courtney Love began sorting out her grief and in a way, fell into a familiar behavior, protecting her husband against scarless tabloids and hangers-on. She found the inner strength when the pressure and the Kleeg lights were most powerful and confronted Kurt's devastated fans despite her own unsordid grief. She put one foot in front of the other. In the vigil that sprung up around their home, Courtney visited with Kurt's fans. She recorded and played a taped reading of his suicide note because that's what Kurt would have wanted.

• 35:41Jake Brennan?

  He had, after all, written it for them. And she comforted fans personally, walking amongst them, talking to them, hugging them, and sharing her own grief. She let them in, and they in turn did the same for her. It was honest, painful, and punk as fuck. 171 Lake Washington Boulevard, Seattle, Washington, was where Kurt Cobain had lived up until a couple of days earlier. But it wasn't really a home. There was no love. His wife was off in LA, and so was his daughter. There were no relatives coming by to check in or pass the time. The best Kurt had were a couple grungy hangers-on who were living off of his credit card under the guise of taking care of the place. It was cold, dark, near empty.

• 36:26Jake Brennan?

  It was a house, not the home Kurt had longed for his whole life. But now, in the wake of his death, the house was descended upon by throngs of people who loved him, who wanted nothing more than to embrace him. And his wife had risen to the occasion and opened herself up to the collective hug of her dead husband's fans, doing what grieving loved ones have done since the beginning of time, benefited from the power of friends, family, and home to see them through. It's a powerful kind of love that sees the grief through their darkest moments. It's the type of love that gives you resilience, the type of love that can sprout wings on your back. The type of love that comes from the heart, from the home, the type of love that Kurt Cobain would never experience. And that's a disgrace.

• 37:13Jake Brennan?

  I'm Jake Vernon, and this is Disgrace Land.

• 37:26Jake Brennan?

  Disgrace Land was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgrace Land All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgrace Land ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok,

• 38:09Jake Brennan?

  Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod and on YouTube at youtube.com/AtDisgraceLandPod. Rock or roll.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  He's a bad, bad man.

• 38:24Jake Brennan?

  All right, guys. Thanks for checking out the special two-part rewind episode of Disgrace Land on Nirvana. 617-906-6638, voicemail and text. What do you think? How do you think Kurt died? Do you think I got it right? You think the history books got it right? Do you think something nefarious is at play? Do you still believe that? 617-906-6638, voicemail and text. At Disgrace Land Pod on the socials. [email protected]. Let me know.

• 38:51Speaker 07

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on an amazing guest.

• 39:03Speaker 05

  Ooh, I scam them.

• 39:04Speaker 07

  What?

• 39:04Speaker 05

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 39:06Speaker 07

  You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job.

• 39:10Speaker 05

  And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.