Cobain’s Widow Reads Parts of Suicide Note at Seattle Vigil

Kurt Cobain’s widow read parts of his suicide note in an angry, vulgar taped message to thousands of Nirvana fans gathered for a candlelight vigil Sunday.

Cobain, 27, whose anguished lyrics helped sell millions of records featuring Nirvana’s guitar-gritty sound since 1991, was found Friday in the home he shared with his wife, Courtney Love, and their toddler daughter. He died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head, authorities said.

“I haven’t felt the excitement for so many years,” Love read from the note. “I felt guilty for so many years. The fact is I can’t fool you, any one of you. The worst crime is faking it.”

Love interrupted her narrative to add: “No, the worst crime is leaving.”

“I don’t have the passion anymore,” Cobain wrote, and, borrowing from a Neil Young song, added: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

But Love added on tape to the crowd: “Don’t believe that.”

The crowd of 4,000 to 5,000 near the Space Needle heard a poetry reading, then Love’s tape and an exhortation from a crisis counselor who advised distraught fans not to hurt themselves.

Before reading the note, Love described it as “a letter to the editor.” She said she was omitting parts of it addressed to her because “it’s none of your . . . business.”

As the Space Needle observance continued, Love, other family members and friends privately gathered a few blocks away for their own unannounced memorial service at Unity Church.

Cobain’s problems were well documented: heroin addiction, discomfort with celebrity, domestic disputes and, last month, a near-fatal ingestion of drugs and alcohol.

“I feel the same way you guys do, I feel so horrible,” Love said. “I don’t know how it happened. I knew it was going to happen, but it could have happened when he was 40.”