Frances Bean Cobain Was Only 5 Years Old When She First Learned About Her Dad’s Suicide

On April 8, 1994, the world lost the iconic rock star Kurt Cobain after he committed suicide at his home in Seattle, Washington. The Nirvana frontman’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, was only 1 year old when he died. But now, during a recent interview on RuPaul‘s “What’s the Tee?” podcast, the 25-year-year-old revealed how old she was when she finally learned about her father’s death — and she opened up about how her mother, Courtney Love, prepared her for that moment.

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“Yeah, so I wasn’t told my dad committed suicide until the age of 5,” Frances told RuPaul, 58. “And so my mom preemptively sent me to therapy a year before telling me so that I could be eased into that conversation. You can’t really explain that to an 18-month-old.”

She went on to praise Courtney, 54, for choosing to start her in therapy at such a young age because it helped grow into a well-spoken adult. “I’ve found that I’m a very good communicator,” the visual artist explained. “I’ve been referred to as a translator I have a really good capacity to regurgitate other people’s sentiments in a secular way to make them understand and that’s absolutely due to my communication skills I obtained in therapy. That was really beneficial to talk about myself and express my feelings and emotions and mentality in a communicative and non-intense way.”

But even though Frances gave props to the Hole frontwoman, she was also very candid about their mother-daughter relationship — which has been rocky due to her mom’s long battle with addiction. “I am somebody who only wants to provide the role for her as somebody who loves her and supports her and has a nonjudgmental understanding of empathy and compassion that maybe nobody else in her life has,” she said. “I want our relationship to be based on open communication and love and truth and awareness about how our actions affect the other person. I hope that we’re bringing in the era of balance.”