Selena Gomez Cites Kurt Cobain as Formative Influence During Interview Promoting New Track 'Love On'

Selena Gomez spoke about her love for Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain when she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this weekend.

The singer was there to promote her new single "Love On," but the host kicked the interview off with a question about Gomez's formative musical experiences.

"Who was your Selena Gomez growing up? Was there somebody you were kind of obsessed with?" Kimmel asked.

The pop star said Cobain was one of her first musical role models.

"My mom would play all kinds of music for me growing up, then I kind of got obsessed," Gomez said.

The singer also died and cut her hair to resemble the grunge icon's blonde mop.

"I know a little too much," she added. "I would rewatch his interviews, I would watch his performances, I've seen his documentary like 12 times."

The singer can be seen sporting a pair of bubbly white sunglasses in one scene of the music video for "Love On." Cobain donned a similar pair from designer Christian Roth during one of his most iconic photo shoots.

Nirvana and Gomez's radio pop may seem worlds apart, but superfans know that Cobain had a deep appreciation for pop music.

"I've always loved pop music, it just so happened that most of the songs that we wrote at the time the Bleach album was coming out were more abrasive songs," the songwriter said during a 1992 interview with Rapido TV transcribed by Live Nirvana.

"There were quite a few songs that were very pop, like the song 'About a Girl,' that were just left off the album. In fact, a few of the very pop songs on [Nevermind] were written at the time, if not before, the Bleach album came out. I think that releasing the 'Sliver' single was a good example of what Nevermind would have."

After making a name for herself as a Disney starlet, Gomez broke into the music industry with the help of her pop rock group the Scene.

Fans are hoping the singer's next album will come out sometime this year. Gomez has said it will be her last LP.

"I do feel like I have one more album in me but I would probably choose acting," she said earlier this year during an episode of the Smartless podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. "I am going to want to chill because I’m tired."

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But that doesn't mean she'll be resting on her laurels. Gomez is set to play the singer Linda Ronstadt in an upcoming biopic.

Last year, the actress shot a musical crime comedy film called Emilia Perez. The movie about a woman tasked with helping a Mexican drug lord get gender reassignment surgery is expected to come out sometime this year.

She's not the only Disney alum with a rock background.

Demi Lovato grew up in the MySpace era listening to bands like Job For a Cowboy, Abigail Williams and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster. The singer said she wanted to collaborate with some high-profile heavy musicians during an interview with SiriusXM last year.

"Someone I’ve always wanted to work with is Corey Taylor and, you know, obviously working with bands like Knocked Loose would be sick, too," she said.

Lovato also spoke about the pop sensibility of Job For a Cowboy's "Entombment of a Machine."

"It was the first song that I realized metal music, in a way, can be catchy without being a pop song because you listen for the guitar riffs, you listen for that certain part of the song," she said.

The singer also recalled going to an Unearth and Dimmu Borgir show at age 14.

"I was probably about 90 pounds and I decided to go into the middle of the crowd," she said. "All of a sudden people start moshing like really moshing and I had been in pits before that weren’t as intense, but this was so intense and I was like, 'I gotta get out of here,' so I literally, I just jumped up and crowd surfed to the front of the stage and that was my first time crowd surfing and I was like, 'I lost a shoe.' It was so much fun."