Rediscovered Interview Reveals Kurt Cobain Thought He Was Gay

PBS series Blank on Blank has unearthed a 20-year-old interview with Kurt Cobain in which the Nirvana front man spoke candidly about questioning his sexuality in his youth and revealed he thought he was gay in high school.

The interview took place in July 1993, when music journalist Jon Savage met with Cobain in New York City to discuss the subject of identity.

"I even thought that I was gay," Cobain told Savage. "I thought that might be the solution to my problem. Although I never experimented with it, I had a gay friend, and then my mother wouldn't allow me to be friends with him anymore, because she's homophobic. It was real devastating because finally I found a male friend who I actually hugged and was affectionate too, and we talked about a lot of things. I couldn't hang out with him anymore."

However, this was not the only time Cobain opened up about his fluid feelings toward his sexuality. In a 1992 interview with The Advocate, when the rock music legend was asked if he ever thought he was gay, he responded, "Yeah, absolutely. See, I've always wanted male friends that I could be real intimate with and talk about important things with and be as affectionate with that person as I would be with a girl. Throughout my life, I've always been really close with girls and made friends with girls. And I've always been a really sickly, feminine person anyhow, so I thought I was gay for a while because I didn't find any of the girls in my high school attractive at all. They had really awful haircuts and fucked-up attitudes. So I thought I would try to be gay for a while, but I'm just more sexually attracted to women. But I'm really glad that I found a few gay friends, because it totally saved me from becoming a monk or something."

Cobain went on to say he was "definitely gay in spirit" and "probably could be bisexual," adding, "If I wouldn't have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle."

Listen to Savage's 1993 interview with Cobain in the video below.