Kurt Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, is dodging a final decision on who gets Kurt Cobain’s famous guitar: their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, or her estranged husband. The dispute over Nirvana’s former lead singer’s famous guitar raises the issue of gifts and divorce.
Isaiah Silva – who’s in an ongoing divorce with Frances Bean Cobain (daughter of the late Kurt Cobain)) – claims Courtney’s refused to come to the door twice when his investigators tried to serve her with deposition papers. According to the documents, she’s also hiding from the L.A. Sheriff’s Dept.’s attempts to do the same.
I’ve written about the Nirvana guitar dispute before. At issue is the facts surrounding the 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic guitar Kurt played during Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged” concert. ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ is a live acoustic performance album by Nirvana.
The album debuted at number one, was Nirvana’s most successful posthumous release, went 5x platinum, and won a Grammy Award.
The guitar’s been a heated point of contention in the divorce. Frances says the “priceless family heirloom” belongs to her, but her husband says it’s his because, she gifted it to him during the marriage.
Florida Divorce Gifts
Florida is an equitable distribution state, unlike California, which is a community property state. As an equitable distribution state, in divorce, the court sets apart to each spouse’s nonmarital assets and liabilities, and distributes the marital assets and liabilities between the parties.
The court must begin with the premise that the distribution should be equal, unless there is a justification for an unequal distribution based on all relevant factors. These factors include things like the contribution to the marriage by each spouse, the economic circumstances of the parties, and any interruption of personal careers or educational opportunities of either party for instance.
So, what are “marital assets and liabilities”? They include things like assets acquired during the marriage, and interspousal gifts during the marriage for instance. However, “nonmarital assets” include things like assets acquired before the marriage, and assets acquired by non-interspousal gift.
The fate of Kurt’s famous guitar then, could depend on whether the guitar was a gift from one spouse to another (as Isiah is alleging), and is therefore treated as marital property in an equitable distribution state, or whether it is non-marital.
About a Guitar
TMZ reached out to Courtney about the controversy, but her representatives claim she’s already publicly stated the guitar is a family heirloom and doesn’t belong to anyone other than family, which echoes what she stated previously.
If you don’t know Nirvana or the unplugged concert, stop reading and click here. You won’t be sorry.
Isaiah is claiming he owns Kurt’s former Martin D-18E guitar from the famed MTV performance. The guitar is a very rare; only 300 were made. However, the guitar’s sentimental value is immeasurable, as it was the last guitar played by Kurt before his suicide.
Silva is claiming he owns it because it was given to him by his wife as a wedding present, though she denies gifting it to him. Courtney Love takes her daughter’s side, and has said:
“It’s not his to take. It’s a treasured heirloom of the family’s”
If a judge were to determine that Kurt’s guitar was not a wedding gift from Frances – and given its multi-million dollar and sentimental value, a Cobain family heirloom – it would be Frances’. However, if a judge decides the guitar was a gift from Frances to her husband, an “inter-spousal gift”, the guitar would be marital property.
The TMZ article is here.