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Courtney Love settles Kurt Cobain guitar murder plot lawsuit
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Reaching an agreement: United States singer-songwriter Courtney Love arrives at the premiere of Catch-22 at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California on May 7, 2019. Love has settled a lawsuit with her ex-son-in-law over claims she planned to kill or kidnap him in a dispute about one of Kurt Cobain's guitars. (AFP/Valerie Macon)
U
nited States singer Courtney Love has settled a lawsuit with her ex-son-in-law over claims she planned to kill or kidnap him in a dispute about one of Kurt Cobain's guitars.
A lawyer for the widow of the Nirvana front man told a Los Angeles judge the two sides had reached an agreement.
Isaiah Silva — one-time husband of Love's daughter — had filed the suit in 2018 claiming Love had masterminded a plot to stage a break-in at his home.
Silva claimed several men acting at her behest broke into his home in 2016, pretending to be police officers.
The suit says Silva was dragged from his West Hollywood residence and bundled into a car, but was saved from what he claims would have been his murder by a visiting friend who blocked the vehicle and called the real police.
Silva claimed in the court documents that Love ordered this crew to scare him into giving up a rare 1959 guitar that Kurt Cobain played on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York in 1993.
The guitar seemingly passed to Frances Bean Cobain — daughter of Love and Cobain — after the untimely death of the grunge icon, and formed part of the divorce battle when Bean Cobain and Silva split.
$6 million guitar
Love, 57, had always maintained that she was not involved with the alleged events at Silva's home.
"I never conspired with anyone else to murder or kidnap Silva or take possession of the guitar," Love said in a related court case.
The guitar — a D-18E Martin — sold at auction in Los Angeles in 2020 for US$6 million.
Terms of the settlement between Love and Silva, lead singer for the alt-rock band The Eeries, were not revealed.
Love's tempestuous marriage to Kurt Cobain was one of the defining relationships of the 1990s, fueled by drugs and depression.
It erupted at the start of the decade, and dominated sections of the music and celebrity press with stories of epic arguments and heroin binges.
His suicide in 1994 at the age of 27 left a profound hole in the world of music, with many Nirvana fans blaming her for the tragedy.
Nirvana's intelligent, angst-ridden lyrics overlaid on throbbing guitars made them one of the biggest bands of the decade.
Their 1993 MTV Unplugged in New York was a seminal performance for an entire generation of music fans, and produced what is widely regarded as one of the best live albums of its era.
