Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain

by Danny Goldberg

Cameron also wrote, “The overriding issue here is not that Kurt Cobain is on heroin (or isn’t, or was, or is and is trying to get off) but that his wife is a Grade A pain in the arse. She seems almost universally disliked. ‘The Wicked Witch Of The West’ is one crew member’s assessment, while someone else refers to Kurt being a nice guy BC—‘before Courtney.’” Cameron also referred to Janet as “a cross between wet nurse and human sponge, indulging whims and soaking up all of Courtney’s excess bullshit.” Reflecting on this moment, Kurt later told a British journalist, “A lot of it is simple sexism. Courtney is my wife and people could not accept the fact that I’m in love and that I could be happy, and she is such a powerful and threatening person that every sexist within the industry just joined forces and decided to try to string us up.” Once, while complaining to me about the tabloid interest in the couple, Kurt observed with a bewildered tone, “I don’t even know the name of Bono’s wife.” The ripple effect of the Vanity Fair piece had put Kurt and Courtney in an unenviable category of their own. In much of the media they had become cartoon characters.