A letter penned by Kurt Cobain to record label boss David Geffen is expected to fetch up to $30,000 at auction next month.
The handwritten letter sees the late Nirvana frontman tell of his anger at a 1992 Vanity Fair article which suggested his wife Courtney Love had binged on heroin while pregnant with the couple’s daughter Frances Bean.
Cobain strongly denies the claims and threatens to disband Nirvana if action wasn’t taken against the magazine. It was written as Nirvana were working on their third album, In Utero.
The letter addressed to the Geffen Records boss reads: “Something so severely defamatory towards my family has come up in an article in Vanity Fair that has forced me to decide on breaking up my band.
“The article suggest Courtney and I have been taking heroin constantly throughout her pregnancy, which is not true.
“Courtney found out she was first pregnant within the first month of our drug binge, she has stopped using and has since been visiting Danny Goldberg’s paediatrician on a regular basis.
“The doctor’s prognosis is that our child is in excellent health and there is no need to worry about anything. But this article has outright accused my wife of all kinds of hideously vile things to the point where I have never seen such a crucifixion in a magazine.“The woman’s entire objective was to harm Courtney and now you have read the article I hope something can be done about it. The person who wrote this article, Lynn Hirschberg, must have her karma broken someway. It’s either her or me.
“I am now in rehab going on 18 days and I’m really looking forward to having a family, at this point fuck Nirvana.”
Geffen replied to the note, saying he would help in way he could but suggested that “these things pass and people quickly forget about articles of this type.”
The letter goes under the hammer through Julien’s Auctions at the Hard Rock Cafe, New York, on May 21. Julien’s Auctions executive director Martin Nolan says: “Becoming a father is a hugely important event in anyone’s life, Kurt Cobain was taking his role as a dad very seriously. Frances was everything to him.
“This letter shows a really strong character and expectant dad who was very protective of their family. Nirvana had been his life for so long and he was willing to give it up for the sake of the privacy of his family.”
