Michael Stipe tried to save Kurt Cobain's life

Michael Stipe tried to save Kurt Cobain's life by asking him to collaborate with R.E.M.

The 'Oh My Heart' band's frontman has revealed he was so worried about his friend Kurt's heroin addiction he "reached out to him" with a musical project which never came to fruition.

Michael explained to Interview magazine: "I knew him and his daughter. And Courtney [Love] came and stayed at my house. R.E.M. worked on two records in Seattle, Washington and Peter Buck lived next door to Kurt and Courtney. So we all knew each other. I reached out to him with that project as an attempt to prevent what was going to happen.

"I was doing that to try to save his life. The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place."

Kurt – who committed suicide in 1994 – initially agreed to collaborate with R.E.M but made himself unavailable when it was time to record.

Michael said: "I sent him a plane ticket and a driver, and he tacked the plane ticket to the wall in the bedroom and the driver sat outside the house for ten hours. Kurt wouldn't come out and wouldn't answer the phone. "

The 'Losing My Religion' singer decided not to pursue the troubled star any further because he was uncomfortable being around people on hard drugs.

He said: "I didn't feel like it was my place to get on a plane myself and go to Seattle. I was doing what I thought was the best thing to do at the time. And, you know, frankly I'm not great with heroin addicts. I tried heroin, but it was by accident. I'm not great with that level of substance abuse."

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