This section posted 7th March 04.

If Kurt had meant the letter only for Courtney and Frances, do you think he would have referred to them throughout in the third person? (Unnamed staff writer for VOX magazine’s October 1994 edition). I don’t believe anybody kills himself because he’s not as committed to live shows as Freddie Mercury was.  Kurt’s suicide note gave excuses, not reasons.  I couldn’t pretend to decipher his motivations… (Gavin Edwards, Details magazine, June 1994). The last four lines of the so called “suicide” note are written in a completely different style.  The formation and spacing of the letters and their relation to the other letters, their slant etc looks like they were written by someone other than Kurt.  See scan below:

NME's April 8 1995 cover

In April 1993 Hole released the single ‘Beautiful Son’.  On the back cover there is a handwritten list, scans of the front and back cover of this single to the left.  For a clearer copy of the handwritten list, see below.

According to Grant, Rosemary Carroll also questioned the terminology of the note claiming that it was of the type used by Courtney, not Kurt, and that Courtney may have helped with the wording of this note.  Carroll’s belief is substantiated by the line: “Frances and Courtney, I’ll be at your altar”.  This terminology doesn’t make sense within the context of it being written by someone who plans imminent suicide.  However, the phrase is similar to a quote by Courtney when talking about Kim Gordon in an interview for NME’s 24th August 1991 edition where Courtney said of Gordon: “I worship at her shrine”, see a scan of this article below. The so called “suicide”note seems to have been written long before Kurt died, when, as he confessed many times, he had been contemplating leaving the music business, when he was suffering from excruciating stomach pains and at a time when he still had positive feelings for Courtney.  If this was a retirement letter written by Kurt it could easily have been kept, added to and used later by Courtney. There are at least three witnesses to the fact that Kurt was trying to leave Courtney in March/ April 1994: 1   In the June 2 1994 edition of Rolling Stone magazine it was reported that Gold Mountain employee Janet Billig stated of the note Kurt wrote in Rome, just before he suffered a near fatal overdose, that: “Kurt insisted it was not a suicide note.  He just took all of his and Courtney’s money and was going to run away and disappear”. 2   The nanny interviewed by Nick Broomfield stated that Kurt wanted "to get away from Courtney" and that Courtney was preoccupied by the fact Kurt wanted to change his Will.  This is supported by Rosemary Carroll's statements as mentioned on Grant's website and in W & H's book 'Who Killed Kurt Cobain?' 3   Courtney told Grant that the note Kurt wrote in Rome in March 1994 "wasn't really nice” and that it "talked about getting a divorce". She also told Grant that the SPD’s Sgt Don Cameron advised her to “get rid of” the note. So again the main section of the so called “suicide” note which refers to his wife in favourable terms isn't consistent with what we know were Kurt's intentions of changing his Will, leaving Courtney and getting a divorce in March/April 1994. If the note is viewed as a retirement note written long before April 1994 it begins to make more sense.

The handwritten list on the back cover of Hole's single 'Beautiful Son':

The so called "suicide" note:

Article from NME's August 24 1991 edition: