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Kurt Cobain’s ‘Unplugged’ Guitar Fuels Frances Bean Cobain’s Divorce Fire

By Ven Lanyon
Published on: 02:27 PST, Jul 6, 2016

Frances Bean Cobain’s marriage was already dead after 21 months, and the divorce well underway, but recently, Cobain’s divorce “has taken a nasty turn.” Frances, daughter of Kurt Cobain, “secretly” married rocker Isaiah Silva in 2014, after five years of dating, but the relationship was rocky and the couple quickly grew apart. They split up, and it looked like the divorce would be fairly straightforward as they worked to “hash out a settlement,” but according to the Daily Mail, a battle is brewing over one of Kurt Cobain’s “iconic” guitars.

While Frances Bean Cobain’s net worth is significant enough to cause headaches for any divorce lawyer trying to protect her assets, there’s already a legal agreement in place that “discourages” Silva from going after her dad’s money, pegged at “around $450 million.” But Frances’ famous dad gave her something so valuable that it may be all that’s needed to make this divorce completely nasty.

Kurt Cobain’s last guitar, the one he played right before he killed himself, is a huge item of contention between Frances and Isaiah. As Cobain’s daughter, Frances values the guitar beyond its enormous financial worth, but her estranged husband Silva believes that he has the right to keep the instrument.

It’s a “multi-million dollar guitar” according to TMZ, and was the last one Kurt played as well as the one he used in his “epic” 1993 show, MTV Unplugged. With an insurance value of $1million, and the expectation of bringing in “several times that amount” if Silva decided to sell it at auction, the guitar is worth too much in too many ways for either side to back down.

No wonder Silva wants to hang on to the guitar and is willing to be dirty and aggressive to make that happen. His story is that Frances Bean gave the D-18E Martin guitar to him “as a wedding present,” and he therefore has every right to keep it after the divorce since Kurt’s guitar is now his personal property. Frances doesn’t agree, and she’s got her mom, Courtney Love, on her side.

TV3 reports that when TMZ caught up to Courtney at LAX, Love said that Frances didn’t give the guitar to Silva, and “never planned” on it as a wedding gift.

“It’s not his, it’s a treasured heirloom of the family’s, it’s not his to take.”

Love also made her feelings about Frances’ ex clear. “I’m glad she’s out of this dangerous and toxic relationship,” she added at the end of the brief interview.

Although Frances is at the end of one relationship, it looks like she’s “rekindled” another with her mom. Cobain and Love are coming out of an estrangement lasting six years, after Courtney lost guardianship of Frances after a “breakdown” of their relationship while Frances was in her teens.

Shortly after Francis and Isaiah split, she and Love went on a shopping spree together in the UK, and it looks like their mother-daughter love is back on track now, just when Cobain really needs it.

The acoustic-electric instrument is considered to be a “holy grail” among fans of Cobain’s band, Nirvana. It’s not just that this particular guitar was owned and played by Cobain himself, the model is also very rare and valuable. The Martin guitar company only made 300 before discontinuing the model, and guitarists consider it great to play. According to AcousticMagazine, the D-18 Dreadnought is “something of an industry standard.” Cobain’s guitar is unique in that the left-handed grunge icon had it modified so that he “could play it upside down.”

What do you think? Should Frances hang on to Kurt Cobain’s guitar no matter what it takes?

[Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images]

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