Frances Bean Cobain’s Ex-Husband Says He’s Keeping Kurt’s ‘MTV Unplugged’ Guitar
Frances Bean Cobain—Kurt Cobain's 23-year-old daughter—got divorced back in March. She had been married to 31-year-old Isaiah Silva for a mere 21 months.
And while that's interesting enough in itself, things have taken a dramatic new twist in recent weeks. According to TMZ, Silva, the frontman of a band called the Eeries, says Frances Bean gave him Kurt Cobain’s heavily modified Martin D-18E guitar as a wedding gift.
This is, of course, the very guitar the Nirvana frontman played while filming the band’s legendary MTV Unplugged appearance just a few months before his death.
“It’s a treasured heirloom of the family,” Courtney Love, Frances Bean's mother, told TMZ while on an escalator at LAX. “It’s not [Silva’s] to take. We’re very close, and [Frances] never planned on doing that.” Love also referred to her daughter’s marriage as a “dangerous and toxic relationship.”
But wait, it gets stranger: Last week, Silva alleged that Sam Lutfi, a former manager of Love and Britney Spears, kidnapped him and stole his cellphone. Please stay tuned for updates.
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Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
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