Kurt Cobain’s mother forced him to give up gay friend

TORONTO – Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, said he was crushed when his mother ordered him to stop spending time with a high school friend who was gay.

“It was real devastating because finally I found a male friend who I actually hugged and was affectionate to, and we talked about a lot of things,” Cobain said, a year before his death. “I couldn’t hang out with him anymore.”

In the 1993 interview, posted online last week by PBS Digital Studios, the Smells Like Teen Spirit star added: “I even thought that I was gay.”

Cobain had previously told The Advocate, in a 1992 interview, that he wanted male friends with whom he could be “intimate” and “affectionate.”

The singer said if he hadn’t met his wife Courtney Love, “I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.”