Kurt Cobain’s daughter Frances Bean makes red carpet return after EIGHT YEARS amid ongoing mystery around Nirvana rocker dad’s death
Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain launched her grand return to the red carpet in Los Angeles this week after an eight-year absence.
Frances, 34, was pictured at the premiere of the new crime comedy The Deputy, starring William H Macy alongside Kanye West’s ex Julia Fox.
For her latest night on the town, she was accompanied by her husband and fellow ‘nepo baby’ Riley Hawk, the son of skateboarding star Tony Hawk.
She withdrew from red carpet events after 2018, during which year she posed with her mother at the launch of Los Angeles boutique Other People’s Children.
Later in 2018, she could be seen mingling with Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris Jackson at a Moschino x H&M runway show during New York Fashion Week.
After nearly a decade away, Frances made her triumphant comeback to the red carpet Tuesday, bearing a striking resemblance to her Nirvana frontman father, whose 1994 suicide has found itself at the center of a fresh mystery.
Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain launched her grand return to the red carpet in Los Angeles this week at the premiere of the crime comedy The Deputy
For her latest night on the town, she was accompanied by her husband and fellow ‘nepo baby’ Riley Hawk, the son of skateboarding star Tony Hawk
Frances Bean is pictured as a baby with her parents attending the 1993 MTV VIdeo Music Awards, the year before Kurt’s suicide
Frances attended her latest red carpet in an outfit that included a fashionably faded graphic t-shirt, evoking memories of her parents’ 1990s heyday.
Her curtains of straight, long blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, amplifying her physical similarity between her and her father.
Having retreated from the red carpet after 2018, she stopped appearing at public showbiz events altogether for years after sitting front row at a Moschino show held at Universal Studios Hollywood in June 2019.
As the mystique around her intensified, she struck up a romance with Riley in 2021 and married him at a secret ceremony in the San Diego area two years later.
Her clandestine wedding was officiated by her godfather, REM frontman Michael Stipe, who had been a close friend of Kurt’s.
Stipe had responded to Kurt’s suicide by writing an REM song called Let Me In about his attempts to help his friend overcome his demons.
Kurt was found dead of a shotgun wound in April 1994 in Seattle, at the denouement of a long spiral from depression and heroin addiction.
Frances, who was nearly two years old when she lost her father, welcomed a son with Riley in September 2024 called Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk.
Frances attended her latest red carpet in an outfit that included a fashionably faded graphic t-shirt, evoking memories of her parents’ 1990s heyday
She struck up a romance with Riley in 2021 and married him two years at a secret ceremony in the San Diego area officiated by her godfather, REM frontman Michael Stipe
She withdrew from red carpet events after 2018, during which year she posed with her mother at the launch of Los Angeles boutique Other People’s Children (pictured)
Later in 2018, she could be seen mingling with Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris Jackson at a Moschino x H&M runway show during New York Fashion Week
She stopped appearing at showbiz events for years after the Moschino show at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2019; pictured there with Nikia Provenzano (left) and Eli Roth (right)
Riley raved last year about the life he and Frances lead as a ‘a very quiet stay-at-home family’ with a son who was ‘learning every day,’ via People.
He reflected that he and his wife ‘don’t really think too much about’ their parents’ legacy in entertainment and prefer to ‘just do our own thing.’
Meanwhile, Tony Hawk shared a heartrending Instagram caption in February 2025 on the subject of Kurt’s absence from his baby grandson’s life.
Posting a ticket stub of a Nirvana concert he attended in 1991, Tony wrote: ‘I wish Kurt were here so he could see the incredible woman his daughter has become, meet her devoted, caring husband, and hold our wondrous grandchild.’
The day before Valentine’s Day 2018 – the year of her final profusion of red carpet appearances before her eight-year hiatus – Frances made a rare disclosure about her personal life by marking two years of sobriety.
Frances, who was nearly two years old when she lost her father, welcomed a son with Riley in September 2024 called Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk
‘It’s an interesting and kaleidoscopic decision to share my feelings about something so intimate in a public forum. The fact that I’m sober isn’t really public knowledge, decidedly and deliberately,’ she wrote. ‘But I think it’s more important to put aside my fear about being judged or misunderstood or typecast as one specific thing.’
Without clarifying what she had been addicted to, she wrote: ‘It is an everyday battle to be in attendance for all the painful, bazaar, uncomfortable, tragic, f***ed up things that have ever happened or will ever happen.’
Frances’ mother also abused cocaine, heroin and pills before announcing in February 2020 that she had achieved 18 months of sobriety.
Love lost custody of her daughter from 2003 until 2005 after a painkiller overdose, and in 2009 court documents revealed that the then 17-year-old Frances had been placed in her grandmother’s guardianship.
