Frances Bean Breaks Silence About Her Father, Kurt Cobain
Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for HBO
Frances Bean Cobain has spoken exclusively with Rolling Stone in her first public interview about her father, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, opening up about her quest to discover who her dad was, her rocky (but recovering) relationship with her mother Courtney Love, and the film that brought them all back together — director Brett Morgen’s new Cobain documentary Montage of Heck.
“What really surprised me was watching my parents’ love story,” Frances, now 22 years old, says of the film. “Because they were so close to my age now. It was like friends falling in love — I did not expect that.”
See Rolling Stone’s ranking of all of Nirvana’s 102 songs.
The interview is part of a three-hour conversation with Rolling Stone’s David Fricke — who profiled Cobain for Rolling Stone’s January 1994 issue and spoke with him several times — for the magazine’s new cover story about the making of Montage of Heck. Frances, who was barely two years old when her father died in April 1994, serves as executive producer and had a big impact on the shape of the film. “She said, ‘For 20 years, my dad has been like Santa Claus, this mythical figure,’” Morgen tells the magazine. “'People come up to me and say, "Your dad’s so cool.” And I don’t know him. I want to present Kurt the man.’“
The film, which airs May 4 on HBO and in select theaters on April 24, is an intimate exploration of the musician through his personal recordings, an archive of collected ephemera provided by friends and family, and interviews with those who knew him. "It’s emotional journalism,” Frances explains. “It’s the closest thing to having Kurt tell his own story in his own words — by his own aesthetic, his own perception of the world.”
Trace Kurt Cobain’s history on the big screen.
The film was also a way to bring her closer to her mother, who attended a private screening with Frances days before the film’s Sundance premiere. After watching a powerful scene where Kurt was visibly intoxicated while holding his daughter, Love was moved to tears.
“My mother held me, cried on me and just said, 'I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” Frances tells Rolling Stone. “Just kept saying it over and over. But then she said, 'Do you realize how much your father loved you?’ And I said, 'Yeah, I do.’”
Frances also used the film to get to know the father she barely remembers but whose presence, cultural influence and genetics have made him “inescapable” for her. She tells Fricke about a day when former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic visited her house and were struck by her resemblance to her father. “They had what I call the 'K. C. Jeebies,’” she explains, “which is when they see me, they see Kurt. They look at me, and you can see they’re looking at a ghost.”
Even though Frances is aware of all the similarities she shares with her famous father, she never really found herself drawn to his music. “I don’t really like Nirvana that much,” she tells Fricke with a grin. “The grunge scene is not what I’m interested in.” Still, she cites “Territorial Pissings” and “Dumb” as her favorite Nirvana songs and says her musical leanings tend more towards bands like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Mercury Rev.
Frances says her focus now is on her own visual art. “I have this motivation and ambition that I didn’t have before,” she says. “Once I get out of bed and get into my art room, I start painting.”
