Frances Bean Cobain says her plane catching fire allowed her to find 'radical gratitude' as she enters her 30s
Frances Bean Cobain is sharing her feelings about turning 30 — and how, at one point in her life, she wasn’t sure it would ever happen for her.
The model, who is the only child of Courtney Love and the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, took to Instagram on Thursday to share several photos of herself and loved ones — as well as a few memes — in order to commemorate the milestone.
“30 !!! I made it,” she began her caption. “Honestly, 20 year old Frances wasn’t sure that was going to happen. At the time, an intrinsic sense of deep self loathing dictated by insecurity, destructive coping mechanisms & more trauma than my body or brain knew how to handle, informed how I saw myself and the world; through a lens of resentment for being brought into a life that seemingly attracted so much chaos and the kind of pain tied to grief that felt inescapable. Then, an event on a plane which brought me closer in proximity to death is ironically the event that catapulted me towards running at this lived experience with radical gratitude. I’m glad to have proven myself wrong & to have found ways to transform pain into knowledge.”
Cobain is referring to a 2017 incident in which the wing of the plane she was flying on caught fire mid-air. In an Instagram post recalling the harrowing experience, she wrote, “When I felt the plane tilt, saw the wing directly in front of me catch fire, and basically came to grips with my own mortality I made a deal with myself. I promised myself that if I made it through, that I would no longer try to escape the moments of my life.”
In her 30th birthday post, Cobain shared a quote from Jaiya John, writing that the words “The softer she became with herself, the softer she became with the world” were ones she tried to “remember daily.”
“Entering this new decade I hope to stay soft no matter how hardening the world can feel at times, bask in the present moment with reverence, shower the people I am lucky enough to love with more appreciation than words could ever do justice & hold space to keep learning, so the growth never stops,” she concluded. “I’m happy to be here & I’m happy you’re here too.”
Cobain has previously spoken about getting sober after battling drug addiction, as her late father did before his death by suicide in 1994. In 2018, she posted a photo while on vacation in Hawaii, along with a message about going public with her decision to get sober.
“It’s an interesting and kaleidoscopic decision to share my feelings about something so intimate in a public forum,” she shared at the time to mark her two-year sober milestone. “The fact that I’m sober isn’t really public knowledge, decidedly and deliberately. But I think it’s more important to put aside my fear about being judged or misunderstood or typecast as one specific thing.”
Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life's newsletter. Sign up here.
