The man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of Nirvana’s 1991 album “Nevermind” is suing the band 30 years later, claiming the photograph amounts to child pornography and sexual exploitation, according to reports.
Spencer Elden, 30, who was 4 months old at the time the image was taken at a pool in Pasadena, California, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the central U.S. District Court of California, NBC News reported.
Several defendants are named in the action, including the two surviving band members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, and Courtney Love, the executor of the estate of Kurt Cobain, Nirvana’s frontman who died by suicide in 1994.
Credit: Frank Micelotta
Credit: Frank Micelotta
Also listed are Cobain estate managers Guy Oseary and Heather Parry; photographer Kirk Weddle; art director Robert Fisher; and numerous other record companies and distributors.
The band’s original former drummer Chad Channing is also named in the suit although he had left Nirvana the year before the album was produced.
The defendants “knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography,” and “failed to take reasonable steps to protect Spencer and prevent his widespread sexual exploitation,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks $150,000 in damages from each defendant, plus legal costs, Rolling Stone reported.
The suit alleges that each party benefited “from their participation in Spencer’s commercial sexual exploitation” and that Elden “has suffered and will continue to suffer lifelong damages.”
Under U.S. law, non-sexualized photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography, Rolling Stone reported.
The suit, however, claims the photo portrays Elden “like a sex worker.”
The child’s genitalia is exposed on the album cover as he swims toward a dollar bill attached to a fishhook, but the image has been commonly perceived in popular culture as a statement on capitalism rather than an expression of sexuality.
The “Nevermind” cover still stands as one of rock music’s most popular and recognizable ever made.
On the 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries of its release, Elden recreated the image in several photo shoots, although not in the nude, NBC and Rolling Stone noted. He never received any money for the original photo, however, and he never “signed a release authorizing the use of any images ... of his likeness” the lawsuit states, according to the reports.
About the Author
