Kurt Cobain Talks Gay Thoughts, Homophobic Mother And Oppression Of Women In Lost Interview

PBS Digital Studios’ Blank on Blank is highlighting a “lost interview” with legendary Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. He was interviewed by Jon Savage for Identity in New York City on ...
Kurt Cobain Talks Gay Thoughts, Homophobic Mother And Oppression Of Women In Lost Interview
Written by Chris Crum
  • PBS Digital Studios’ Blank on Blank is highlighting a “lost interview” with legendary Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. He was interviewed by Jon Savage for Identity in New York City on July 22, 1993.

    In the highlights below, Cobain talks about his problems in high school, his mother, his ancestry, stomach pain, sexism in music, punk rock, thinking he was gay and his mother’s response to him having a gay friend.

    On his time in high school, he said, “I always felt that they would vote me most likely to kill everyone at a high school dance, you know?”

    He says his mother tried to keep an ongoing “English culture” in his family, and they drank tea all the time. He says he had a really good childhood until his parents got divorced, and then he couldn’t face his friends at school. He couldn’t find any male friends, so he hung out with girls a lot, and felt that they weren’t being treated with the respect they deserved, adding that women are “totally oppressed”.

    “I even thought that I was gay,” Cobain says. “I thought that might be the solution to my problem. Although I never experimented with it, I had a gay friend, and then my mother wouldn’t allow me to be friends with him anymore because she’s homophobic. It was really devastating because finally I found a male friend who I actually hugged and was affectionate to, and we talked about a lot of things…I couldn’t hang out with him anymore.”

    The entire interview can be found at Rocksbackpages.com.

    [via Blank on Blank]

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