September 9, 1992, Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles. The biggest stars of the music world are in attendance at MTV's annual Video Music Awards, but all is not peace and love. In fact, the tensions between two of rock's biggest bands looks as if it might spoil over into a physical confrontation.
Nirvana and Guns N' Roses were not pals, despite the fact that Gn'R vocalist Axl Rose had openly expressed his admiration for Kurt Cobain's band. Rose had actually wanted Nirvana to play with Guns N' Roses and Metallica on their stadium mega-tour, and had also invited the Aberdeen, Washington trio to play at his birthday party, but both offers were rebuffed: "To go out and play to thousands and thousands of people who'd have fucking kicked our asses if they'd known us in high school didn't necessarily seem like the right place to be at the time," Dave Grohl later stated about the tour offer.
Irritated, Rose subsequently weighed in on rumours that Cobain's wife Courtney Love had used heroin while pregnant, and suggested that both she and Nirvana's frontman should be sent to prison if their daughter was born "deformed" as a consequence of this. Word of this clearly got back to the Nirvana camp, for when Love spotted Rose ahead of the MTV Awards, she shouted out to him to ask, “Axl, do you wanna be the godfather to our child?” Axl responded by telling Kurt Cobain to "shut [his] bitch up."
“Shut up, bitch!” a mocking Cobain then told Love, to the huge amusement of all in the Nirvana camp.
