It was just mean-spirited... Nirvana cover baby sues
THE baby on the cover of Nirvana’s 1991 Nevermind album is suing the band for ‘sexual exploitation’.
Spencer Elden, now 30, claims he has suffered ‘lifelong damages’ after he was pictured as a four-month-old baby swimming naked in a pool and following a dollar bill on a hook.
His lawsuit claims he could not consent and his legal guardians never signed a release ‘authorising the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him’. He alleges the band promised to cover his genitals with a sticker.
Elden is suing 15 defendants including Nirvana’s surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, frontman Kurt Cobain’s former wife Courtney Love and his estate, the record labels behind the album and photographer Kirk Weddle for $150,000 (almost £110,000) each.
Weddle was a friend of Elden’s father Rick, who said in 2008 that the photographer offered him $200 to ‘throw your kid in the drink’.
Elden has had mixed feelings about the Nevermind artwork (pictured) over the years. He got the album title tattooed on his chest and recreated the image as an adult on the album’s 10th and 25th anniversaries.
However, in 2016, he referred to the situation as ‘f***ed up’ and said he’s ‘p***ed off’ about it.