The lawsuit was filed just a month before the celebrated album turns 30. He is now seeking at least $150,000 USD from each member. Elden further argues that Nirvana promised to cover his genitals with a sticker and that the photo used is actually child pornography the band supposedly did not prevent him from “being sexually exploited” and the famous image of him as a naked baby caused him lifelong damages. He alleges that he was unable to give his consent to use the image because he was only four months old, and that his legal guardians did not give their consent either. "It’s hard not to get upset when you hear how much money was involved,” he says." I go to a baseball game and think about it: 'Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby p****,' I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked.According to sources, Elden is suing Nirvana, its surviving members and the estate of Kurt Cobain.
He also added that his attempts to contact Grohl and Novoselic have always been unsuccessful, and in the same interview he hinted at feeling exploited. "I feel like I’m the last little bit of grunge rock," Elden says, "I’m living in my mom’s house and driving a Honda Civic." "Everyone involved in the album has tons and tons of money," he told TIME in 2016, for the 25th anniversary. Defendants used child pornography depicting Spencer as an essential element of a record promotion scheme commonly utilized in the music industry to get attention, wherein album covers posed children in a sexually provocative manner to gain notoriety, drive sales, and garner media attention, and critical reviews."Įlden has recreated the image on a number of the album's noteworthy anniversaries, but in interviews has occasionally waxed ambivalently about his own involvement, and has expressed dismay that his parents received just $200 for his shoot. The cover image has long been understood to be a comment on capitalism, but, as Variety adds, Elden's attorneys have arrived at a different conclusion: "Defendants intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense. © Samir Hussein - Getty ImagesĪn outside view of ’In Bloom: The Nirvana Exhibition’, which marked the 20th anniversary of the release of Nevermind in London, 2011. He is seeking at least $150,000 from each defendant as well as compensation for legal fees. As Variety, who has obtained a copy of the filing, reports, former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing is also a defendant, despite the fact that he had already been replaced by Grohl by this time.Įlden alleges that he has suffered "lifelong damages" and that his guardians never signed a release "authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him." He is also launching claims of sexual exploitation at the image, suing for distribution of private sexually explicit materials, negligence, and what his team has described as a "sex trafficking venture." It also named the labels behind the album's distribution as well as the executors of Cobain's estate and the managers of the estate. On Wednesday, news broke that Elden and his lawyers have filed suit against the estate of former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Cobain's wife at the time of his death, Courtney Love, the grunge outfit's surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well we the image's photographer, Kirk Weddle, and art director, Robert Fisher. One of the most famous covers in music history, it has been recreated plenty times in pop culture-several times even by the subject, named Spencer Elden-but, now, 30 years after its release, it's embroiled in new controversy. Everyone knows this baby! The cover of Nirvana's 1991 LP, Nevermind, which featured a naked four-month-old floating underwater, chasing a dollar bill on a fish hook, surrounded by bubbles, is nearly as iconic as the songs it adorned.
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