Self, Heartbreak

8 Things You Didn't Know About Kurt Cobain

Nirvana frontman and Courtney Love's husband Kurt Cobain committed suicide at 27 in April 1994. It's been 20 years since he left behind his wife and infant daughter, and a lasting alt rock legacy. 

Now, a handwritten letter, tucked in his wallet at the time of death, has been released by Seattle police and found the singer referring to his controversial and "lawfully shredded wife" as "a bitch with zits and siphoning all yr money for doping and whoring." It had us thinking about the man who took his life during its prime and amid the height of his fame. While he referred to his wife as a "goddess" who "sweats with ambition and empathy" in his actual suicide note, we can't help but wonder if his other note was some sort of inside joke.

Cobain was a creative, conflicted, troubled and talented man. Here are eight facts which will further deepen the mystery of this tortured artist:

1. He once made a film on Super-8, a hobby of his, in which he committed suicide.     

How eerily prophetic, but not exactly in a good way. 

2. He used to purchase hunks of meat and go into the woods and shoot them with guns.

That's better than shooting deer or other game. Again, it's sadly prophetic, since he would eventually use a shotgun to end his life.

3. He once held a job as a swim instructor for kids at the YMCA in Aberdeen, Washington.

The fact that the singer and guitarist worked with kids paints him in a gentle light.

4. He switched to boxers after Courtney Love chastised him for wearing tight undies.

We know C. Love isn't a shrinking violet and that she probably wore the pants in this relationship, and well, Kurt did wear skirts in public, for effect. But she really exerted her influence by getting him to swap out his underwear.

5. While growing up, he had an imaginary BFF.

The imaginary friend was named Boddah. Sure, that looks like a take on Buddah, although that similarity was probably purely accidental.

6. He was once homeless.

He didn't couch surf at one point. Instead, he slept in the waiting room of Grays Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, WA, which was where he was born, cycle-of-life style.

7. His wife found out that she was pregnant with their first and only child, daughter Frances Bean, the same day that the band played SNL.

Those are two big life events, one being professional and the other personal. He also made out with bassist Krist Novoselic after an SNL performance but that footage has been cut from syndicated airings.

8. He hated sports.

Even so, he was on the high school wrestling team and played Little League baseball because he father forced him to.