Kurt Cobain's only child Frances Bean Cobain is finally embracing her father's legacy in her own way
April 5 marked the 25th anniversary of late 'Nirvana' frontman Kurt Cobain's tragic death, and his daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, couldn't help but share a picture of her father on the eventful day. Frances, who majorly seemed disinterested in her father's legacy growing up, has now, however, started to make her mark on the world with her own quirky personality.
On her father's death anniversary, the young model shared a never-seen-before snap of the late Nirvana artiste, and also took some time to shine a light on mental health. "If you are struggling with your mental health and need someone to talk to please do not be afraid to reach out to your friends, neighbors, parents, counselors, teachers or even strangers on the internet," she wrote on her Instagram story. "Needing help is not a weakness. Let’s end the stigma and shame towards the struggle with mental health."
Plagued with her father's sudden and tragic death as a 20-month-old toddler, Frances' childhood wasn't exactly what people would call 'normal'. In fact, many fans of Courtney Love would recall how the 'Hole' frontwoman was embroiled in rumors of taking heroin during her pregnancy, something that Courtney vehemently denied throughout.
The 26-year-old visual artist, singer, and model, born in Los Angeles, was even removed from her parents' custody for a period during her infancy, only to return after legal proceedings. According to reports, she was named 'Frances' after Frances McKee from 'The Vaselines', and it was later decided that she would carry the middle name 'Bean' because her father Kurt thought she looked like a kidney bean on the ultrasound.
In one interview, Frances revealed that she learned of her father's death when she was five. "I wasn't told my dad committed suicide until the age of 5, so my mom pre-emptively sent me to therapy a year before telling me so I could be eased into that conversation," she said. But maybe her mother's actions weren't enough for the troubled young girl, who, during her adolescent years, had a huge falling-out with mom Courtney; so much so, that she took out a restraining order against Courtney when she was merely 17.
However, the mother-daughter duo has since made up, and last year, the pair joined forces and managed to win the case that seals the photos of Kurt Cobain‘s death. According to reports, Cobain’s family won the case, ensuring that images from four rolls of film taken at the scene of the Nirvana frontman's death in 1994 will be now sealed from public view.
Courtney and Frances had even testified in this case previously, with Courtney saying Cobain's death "was the most traumatic experience of my life. It left me physically distraught and I continue to suffer emotionally from the loss of my husband to this day." Frances, on the other hand, testified that while she has no memory of her father, she "has had to deal with the trauma of his death her entire life."
And this exact trauma is what led the celebrity to speak up more about the importance of proper mental health. On her father's death, she once said: " Kurt got to the point where he eventually had to sacrifice every bit of who he was to his art because the world demanded it of him. In reality, if he had lived, I would have had a dad. And that would have been an incredible experience."
Maybe that's why she admitted to never liking her late father's music since it reminded her so much of what all she had lost as a child. She had said in the past that she dislikes grunge, and admitted to preferring bands like Mercury Rev and Oasis, but says she loves the Nirvana songs 'Dumb' and 'Territorial Pissings'. However, the ex-wife of Isaiah Silva, lead singer of rock band The Eeries, still regrets losing one of her father's precious guitars to her former husband during their divorce settlement.
Frances, who never got the freedom to enjoy her childhood like normal kids, did not seem to know how to react when she found out that she had inherited a large fortune from her father's estate, which shot up her net worth to a whopping $11.2 million. "My relationship to money is different because I didn’t earn it," she said in an interview at the time. "It's almost like this big, giant loan that I’ll never get rid of. I have an almost foreign relationship to it or guilt because it feels like money from somebody that I’ve never met, let alone haven't earned myself."
Well, being the child of a celebrity isn't always so easy, and Frances has definitely learned it the hard way. After struggling with addiction for many years, followed by years of self-destructive behavior, the star finally got sober in 2016, and publicly spoke of her battle with addiction through her social media account last year. "It's an interesting and kaleidoscopic decision to share my feelings about something so intimate in a public forum," she said at the time. "The fact that I'm sober isn't really public knowledge, decidedly and deliberately. But I think it's more important to put aside my fear about being judged or misunderstood or typecast as one specific thing."
And the star credits her stable mental health to her childhood friend Billie Lourd, daughter to late actress Carrie Fisher, and her connection with Sean Lennon, the son of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Of Sean, she said: "He's probably one of the only people on the planet who understands in close detail what I've gone through."
Which is why it doesn't come as too much of a surprise that she rushed to Sean's rescue recently when he opened up about haters who think he is desperately trying to look like his father with the way he dresses and stylizes himself. Frances responded to him, saying: "You look wonderful! I do the same thing with sunglasses, I try not to wear those friggin oval frames often, but I when I do, I know they look good on mah face, so, what can we do. Embrace the similarities and celebrate the differences, I suppose!"
