Helen Mirren has been bringing up Kurt Cobain missing out on modern technology for years

• Helen Mirren's comments astir Kurt Cobain ne'er experiencing GPS went viral.
• But this isn't nan first clip Mirren has mentioned Cobain — she's been doing truthful for astatine slightest a decade.
• Mirren often invokes Cobain's young decease successful 1994 while reflecting connected her attack to aging.

Over nan past decade, Dame Helen Mirren has been asked rather a spot astir really she thinks astir aging.

Mirren, 79, is grateful to person lived arsenic agelong arsenic she has. She's knowledgeable "a world without technology," arsenic she told The Standard, but has besides had nan privilege to acquisition modern marvels for illustration GPS devices and nan internet.

Mirren, complete interviews making love backmost astatine slightest a decade, has a very circumstantial measurement of illustrating that point: Nirvana beforehand man Kurt Cobain, who died by termination successful 1994 astatine property 27.

"I ever say, it's truthful sad that Kurt Cobain died erstwhile he did, because he ne'er sewage to spot GPS," she told The Standard connected its "Brave New World" podcast.

"It's nan astir awesome thing, my small bluish spot stepping down nan street," she said of nan technology. "I conscionable find it wholly magical and unbelievable."

Mirren's comments went viral online aft different publications aggregated them from The Standard. On societal media, group compared nan quotation to nan satire website Clickhole, which regularly posts images of celebrities pinch fabricated quotes.

The timing of Cobain's decease does functionally exemplify Mirren's point, moreover though it's a roundabout measurement to get there: the first webpage went unrecorded successful 1991, and nan Mosaic web browser, which was released successful 1993 and could simultaneously show photos and text, made nan net much accessible to nan wide public. It wasn't until 2007 that NPR declared that GPS had gone "mainstream" done individual devices, nan aforesaid twelvemonth that Google Maps launched connected smartphones. Five years later, Apple launched its ain smartphone-based product, Apple Maps.

So Kurt Cobain did not acquisition nan GPS acquisition that Mirren describes. But she's correct astir thing else: she does benignant of "always" bring up Cobain for illustration this.

In 2014, nan character sat down pinch Oprah Winfrey for her movie "The 100 Foot Journey." At nan time, Winfrey remarked connected Mirren's "energy and vibrancy" contempt her age.

"You either dice young aliases get old," Mirren said astatine nan time. "There's nary different way. I didn't want to dice young. Look astatine Kurt Cobain — he hardly moreover saw a computer!"

In 2015, she told Cosmopolitan that she was "thinking astir Kurt Cobain nan different day," because she was stunned that he had ne'er knowledgeable nan internet. She made akin remarks to beauty publication Get nan Gloss that aforesaid year, and to The Daily Mail successful 2016.

In 2020, Mirren mentioned Cobain successful nan discourse of GPS exertion successful an question and reply pinch Oprah's website.

"The measurement I spot it, you person 2 choices successful life: You tin either get older, aliases die. And I want to proceed to spot what life has successful store," she said. "I deliberation astir Kurt Cobain and each that he missed. I mean, really sad is it that he ne'er knew astir GPS."

To beryllium adjacent to Mirren, it's not uncommon for actors aliases nationalist figures to repetition anecdotes aliases peculiar turns of building successful interviews. And for Mirren, who has been asked many times astir aging successful her 70s, it's understandable that she'd person a go-to anecdote astir mortality.

As for why that anecdote is astir Kurt Cobain? Aside from nan truth that he's a awesome taste fig who died notably young, that's anyone's guess. A typical for Mirren did not instantly respond to Business Insider's petition for comment.