UPDATE: A California judge granted a motion to dismiss the child pornography lawsuit filed in August by Spencer Elden, the man who’s photo as a baby was on the cover of Nirvana’s famous “Nevermind” album.
Now a grown man, Spencer Elden who was the baby featured naked on the cover of the Nirvana album “Nevermind” is suing the band for child exploitation and pornography because the image was used without his consent.
The baby is naked, underwater in a swimming pool chasing a $20 dollar bill on a fishhook.
Elden’s lawyer Robert Y. Lewis is arguing that the image crosses the line into child pornography because money is included in the photo making the baby appear “like a sex worker.”
Nirvana Hit With Lawsuit For ‘Nevermind’ Baby Photo
Spencer Elden, now 30, has filed a lawsuit against the estate of Kurt Cobain as well as against the surviving members of the band claiming that they sexually exploited him by violating child pornography statutes.
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He’s asking for at least $150,000 from each of the defendants.
The suit reads:
“Neither Spencer nor his legal guardians ever signed a release authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him.”
Elden, who was four months old at the time the photo was taken, says his parents were paid $200 on the day the picture was taken.
He also alleged that he has suffered “lifelong damage” from being on the album cover.
Previous reports have said that Elden only took part in the shoot because his father Rick was a friend of the photographer Kirk Weddle.
Elden’s father recounted how it came to be:
“[He] calls us up and was like, ‘Hey Rick, wanna make 200 bucks and throw your kid in the drink?,'” Rick recounts. “I was like, ‘What’s up?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m shooting kids all this week, why don’t you meet me at the Rose Bowl, throw your kid in the drink?’ And we just had a big party at the pool, and no one had any idea what was going on!”
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Accusations Fly In ‘Nevermind’ Baby Lawsuit
The suit claimed that the band, photographer, and record labels all “intentionally marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense.”
Elden went on to claim that he was forced to engage in “commercial sex acts,” and that though the band had promised to conceal his genitals on the album cover, they went back on this and did so anyway.
Court documents read:
“The permanent harm he has proximately suffered includes but is not limited to extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations, interference with his normal development and educational progress, lifelong loss of income earning capacity, loss of past and future wages, past and future expenses for medical and psychological treatment, loss of enjoyment of life, and other losses to be described and proven at trial of this matter.”
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Elden’s Past Conflicting Comments
Elden appeared to feel differently about the whole thing in 2016, when he recreated the album cover fully clothed to pay tribute to it.
“I said to the photographer, ‘Let’s do it naked.’ But he thought that would be weird, so I wore my swim shorts,” Elden, then 25, stated at the time.
“The anniversary means something to me,” he continued. “It’s strange that I did this for five minutes when I was 4 months old and it became this really iconic image.”
However, that same year, Spencer Elden indicated that he also had feelings of resentment about being on this album cover.
“I’m pissed off about it, to be honest … I’ve been going through it my whole life. But recently I’ve been thinking, ‘What if I wasn’t OK with my freaking penis being shown to everybody?’” he said. “I didn’t really have a choice.”
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to reflect the outcome of the lawsuit.
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