A Complete Timeline Of Courtney Love And Kurt Cobain's Relationship

This article contains references to drug use, mental health issues, and suicide.

Is there any celeb couple who encapsulates the archetypal rockstar romance better than Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love? In their heyday, they were grunge royalty, leading two of the most influential bands of the '90s: Nirvana and Hole, respectively. He was a new breed of rock god — sensitive, socially conscious, and lacking the machismo of his predecessors; she was a ripped-babydoll-dress-sporting chanteuse kicking the patriarchy's butt with her provocative gravel-voiced songs. Together, they were, as Cobain once told Rolling Stone, "Evian water and battery acid." But theirs was a love that could be at once passionate, and dynamic, yet anything but pretty on the inside.

As Love put it in an interview with Everett True for The Stranger, "Glamour aside, there could be no more perfect couple at the time, we were so right for each other because we were the most antisocial people in our entire area." Indeed, Cobain and Love complemented each other both in their creative capabilities and ideological sensibilities. But just as soon as their love ignited – and it did so with remarkable speed – it burnt out. Despite their all too brief romance, it left an indelible mark on '90s pop culture, inspiring an entire generation and the ones that followed.

In delving into the complete timeline of Kurt and Courtney's relationship, there will be tears, there will be music, but most of all, there will be a couple who never failed to be interesting ... 

According to "Heavier Than Heaven" (via The Daily Beast), the rapport between Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love was palpable when they first flirted at the Satyricon club circa 1990. Their chemistry was in bloom, but their hook-up had to wait as the Nirvana frontman was there with his girlfriend. To get Cobain's attention, Love sent him "a heart-shaped box filled with a tiny porcelain doll, three dried roses, a miniature teacup, and shellac-covered seashells." Their second meeting arrived in May the following year and they were soon smitten.

Cobain's unassuming nature was attractive to Love. While she admired his good looks, she also appreciated his modesty. "And that was part of the charm," Love said in "Montage of Heck" (via The Washington Post). "He didn't know he was a better-looking guy than Brad Pitt." However, the pair didn't enter a relationship until months later. As Love recounted to Sassy magazine (via Life), "I really pursued him, not too aggressive, but aggressive enough that some girls would have been embarrassed by it."

Speaking with Tony Wilson, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan claimed that Cobain and Love became a couple when Nirvana was playing in Chicago the same night as the Pumpkins. Allegedly, Love flew in to see Corgan, but he was seeing another woman, so she went down the road and hooked up with Cobain, instead. He suggested that the pair knew each other, but that it wasn't "a full blown romance" yet.

It has been alleged that Kurt Cobain proposed to Courtney Love after a show at TJ's venue in Newport, Wales on December 10, 1991. According to some concertgoers who spoke to Wales Online, Cobain took the opportunity at the small, dingy club to get down on one knee. Others, however, have claimed that this story is merely local "folklore" and may not be entirely accurate.

Regardless, on February 24, 1992, the rockstar couple wed in Honolulu, Hawaii. Per EW, Cobain wore flannel pajamas and Love wore a white dress once worn by Frances Farmer, a Hollywood actor who was reportedly lobotomized and later inspired the Nirvana song "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle." With just a handful of guests — including Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl — it was, without doubt, a modest wedding for a superstar couple. "Well, they were both pretty unconventional people," Charles R. Cross told New York Post. "I think the idea of the wedding in a church ... I couldn't imagine that happening in a billion years."

In April of that year, the newly married Cobain spoke to Rolling Stone, where he waxed lyrical about his bride. The Nirvana frontman gushed, "I'm just happier than I've ever been. I finally found someone that I am totally compatible with. It doesn't matter whether she's a male, female ... or a donkey. We're compatible."

The summer of 1992 should have been a triumphant time for Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. After he'd attended the birth of daughter Frances Bean in Los Angeles, Nirvana traveled to England for a landmark headline set at the Reading Festival on August 30. However, just two days later, on September 1, Vanity Fair published a bombshell article suggesting that Love had been using heroin during her pregnancy. 

The article, entitled Strange Love and penned by Lynn Hirschberg, cited an unnamed "business associate" of the pair, who claimed: "Courtney was pregnant and she was shooting up. Kurt was throwing up on people in the cab. They were both out of it." Both Love and Cobain slammed the article as fake news. In a 1992 letter to David Geffen, obtained by Daily Mail, Cobain expressed his fury at the allegations. Likewise, he left Hirschberg a threatening and expletive-laden voicemail. 

That year, he told the LA Times that the "junkie" epithet had long been used against him. "I know that a lot of it has to do with the vibes that I put off," he acknowledged. For her part, Love contends that once she found out she was pregnant, she stopped taking heroin and sought to recover from her addiction, disputing Vanity Fair's inference that she was on drugs throughout her pregnancy. "I did do heroin when I was pregnant, and then I stopped. And I knew she would be fine," the Hole frontwoman emphasized in "Montage of Heck" (via The Washington Post).

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

The VMAs on September 2, 1993 would be Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's first major appearance on the red carpet with Frances Bean. Famously, Love channeled Marilyn Monroe, in a retro-style white dress and bright red lipstick and, at some point, RuPaul cuddled a crying Frances and posed with the (mostly) happy family. Cobain had reportedly told the drag legend that he was a big fan, with the "Cover Girl" performer telling the AV Club that the grunge couple had an affinity for him because they had "the same irreverent, hippie, bohemian mentality" that he came from. "So of course they're going to gravitate toward what I'm doing," he explained.

Cobain's connection with RuPaul was reflective of his progressive social justice leanings at a time when such views were anything but mainstream, and homophobia was rife in the media, as argued by The Washington Post. Famously, Cobain toyed with deconstructing outmoded gender roles and often slammed homophobes and bigots in interviews.

The 1993 VMAs would prove fruitful for Cobain, with Nirvana winning "Best Alternative Video" for their single "In Bloom" — an award presented by none other than Michael Richards (aka Cosmo Kramer, of "Seinfeld"). Then, on September 8 of that year, Cobain and Love performed live together for the first time ever at a Rock Against Rape benefit concert, with Spin praising their "intense" performance. Sadly, this would be the only opportunity fans would have of seeing the rockstar couple on stage together.

On March 1, 1994, Nirvana played their final show at Terminal Einz in Munich, per Kerrang! magazine. Just two days later, Kurt Cobain had an overdose in Rome. As Farout Magazine notes, had Love not found Cobain and called the emergency services, he would have died that day. Speaking with Rolling Stone in December 1994, Love recalled this extremely challenging point in the couple's life, explaining how difficult the European tour was on the ailing rockstar. "He hated everything, everybody," she revealed. "Hated, hated, hated. He called me from Spain, crying. I was gone 40 days. I was doing my thing with my band for the first time since forever."

Love has suggested that Kurt overdosed because he discovered that she wanted to have an affair. "He must have been psychic or something," she told TVGuide. "I almost did one time, and he knew it ... I have no idea how he knew it." While Love never acted on it, she lamented that her brief consideration of an affair may have led to her husband almost dying.

Then, on March 18, police were called to Cobain and Love's home after the Nirvana frontman had been brandishing a gun and making threats against his life, per Rolling Stone. Concerned for her husband's declining health, Love organized an intervention for Cobain to seek help. Regretting her decision to leave her partner to sober up as she left for LA, Love reflected, "That '80s tough-love bull**** — it doesn't work."

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

The prospect of Kurt Cobain dying young was one that had apparently long haunted those around him. As Michael Azerrad revealed in The New Yorker, "I sensed that he was one of those rock musicians who dies young ... I just sensed it. It turns out that a lot of other people around him did, too: his bandmate Dave Grohl sensed it, and so did Kurt's wife, Courtney Love. Even Kurt's own mother acknowledged it."

On April 5, 1994, Cobain died by suicide, aged just 27. The young rockstar's death shocked both fans and peers alike, with numerous musicians paying tribute to him in the aftermath of his tragic demise. Understandably, Love was devastated. Speaking with Rolling Stone eight months later, she noted her inability to hold back tears when discussing her late husband. With regards to being able to perform on stage again, she poignantly revealed, "When the lights are blue and there are two of them in front of me, often they will symbolize Kurt's eyes to me." 

Reflecting on living with Cobain in his final, grueling months, she admitted that while she had to contend with frequent "screaming" and "yelling," caring for both her husband and daughter gave her purpose in life: "To take care of these two human beings, my husband and child, and make sure that they lived. And it was a fine purpose." Love appeared to exhibit empathy and understanding of mental illness at a time when such conditions could be scarcely understood.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.