No one was ever ready to say goodbye to Kurt Cobain, but 22 years after the grunge icon’s death by suicide, fans and trolls are still circulating conspiracy theories — whether if it’s speculating that he was murdered by his wife, Courtney Love, or that he faked his own death to start a new life. The reality is that the Nirvana leader succumbed to a combination of chronic pain, drug addiction and mental illness in 1994, but some people just can’t accept that, and thanks to the Internet, there are always going to be new (imagined) developments.
Fanning the flames of a new conspiracy is the daily British tabloid Daily Mail, which reported that some folks out there think Kurt relocated from Seattle to Peru, changed his name to Ramiro Saavedra and is moonlighting as … a Kurt Cobain impersonator. A video from 2012 resurfaced of Saavedra performing a rendition of “Come As You Are.” Truthfully, he does sound very similar to the late Nirvana frontman… which means he’s a good impersonator. The video being circulated is a clip from a Peruvian talent show called Yo Soy and it prompted some comments from people claiming it really was Cobain. Saavedra, according to Wikipedia, is 32, and if you look at photos of him on his official Facebook page, he looks nothing like Kurt Cobain, aside from his long, grunge-inspired locks. He also plays guitar right-handed, while Cobain was famously left-handed.
The theory probably won’t gain much traction; nevertheless, Kurt’s former bandmates, or at least whoever is running Nirvana’s official social media account, decided to address it with some snark via their Facebook page.
Saavedra, meanwhile, continues to perform music. On his Facebook page, he recently uploaded a Bon Jovi cover. No conspiracies have spun off that … yet.