The Rolling Stone interviews - Jann Wenner [152]
What kind of mood was he in on the European tour before he overdosed in Rome? Was that a genuine suicide attempt?
He hated everything, everybody. Hated, hated, hated. He called me from Spain, crying. I was gone forty days. I was doing my thing with my band for the first time since forever.
Kurt had gone all out for me when I got there [Rome]. He’d gotten me roses. He’d gotten a piece of the Colosseum, because he knows I love Roman history. I had some champagne, took a Valium, we made out, I fell asleep. The rejection he must have felt after all that anticipation—I mean, for Kurt to be that Mr. Romance was pretty intense.
I turned over about three or four in the morning to make love, and he was gone. He was at the end of the bed with a thousand dollars in his pocket and a note saying, “You don’t love me anymore. I’d rather die than go through a divorce.” It was all in his head. I’d been away from him during our relationship maybe sixty days. Ever. I needed to be on tour. I had to do my thing.
I can see how it happened. He took fifty fucking pills. He probably forgot how many he took. But there was a definite suicidal urge, to be gobbling and gobbling and gobbling. Goddamn, man. Even if I wasn’t in the mood, I should have just laid there for him. All he needed was to get laid. He would have been fine. But with Kurt you had to give yourself to him. He was psychic. He could tell if you were not all the way there. Sex, to him, was incredibly sacred. He found commitment to be an aphrodisiac.
Yeah, he definitely left a note in the room. I was told to shut up about it. And what could the media have done to help him?
What happened after he came out of the coma and returned to Seattle?
The reason I flipped out on the 18th of March [Love summoned the police to the house after Cobain locked himself in a room with a gun] was because it had been six days since we came back from Rome, and I couldn’t take it anymore. When he came home from Rome high, I flipped out. If there’s one thing in my whole life I could take back, it would be that. Getting mad at him for coming home high. I wish to God I hadn’t. I wish I’d just been the way I always was, just tolerant of it. It made him feel so worthless when I got mad at him.
The only thing I can call it was a downward spiral from there. I got angry, and it was the first time I ever had. And I’m sorry—wherever the hell he is. And when people say, “Where was she, where was she?” I was in L.A. because the interventionist said I had to leave. Interventionist walks into the house: “Dominant female, get rid of her.” I did not even kiss or get to say goodbye to my husband. I wish to God . . .
[Long pause] Kurt thought I was on their side because I had gone along with them. I wasn’t. I was afraid. “It was in the L.A. Times that you’re not going to do Lollapalooza. Everybody thinks you’re going to die. Could you just go to rehab for a week?” “I just want to see Michael [Stipe]. You think I’m going to do dope in front of Michael? No, I won’t.”
I should have just left there, flown up to him. Peter Buck lives next door. Stephanie [Dorgan, Buck’s girlfriend] had the tickets [to Atlanta]. I wish I’d just drove him to the airport. Let him go. He worshiped Michael.
Guns were a big issue in the arguments you had with Kurt, and the police were constantly taking them away. Yet when I pointedly asked him about guns in our interview, he started talking about target practice.
He totally fucking lied to you. He never went shooting in his life. One time he said, “I’m going shooting.” Yeah. Shooting what? He never even made it to the range.
Yeah, it was an issue in the house. I liked having a revolver for protection. But when he bought the Uzi thing . . . “Hey, is that a toy, Kurt?” Yeah, it’s dangerous when you