Spencer Elden (now 30) was picturised as an infant for the iconic cover art of Nirvana’s album ‘Nevermind’. Elden filed a lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that the image used on the album’s cover constitutes child pornography. On the ‘Nevermind’ cover, Elden (as an infant) was photographed nude, underwater, reaching for a dollar bill on a fishing hook.
The album cover is deemed to a be a commentary on capitalism; suggesting that a person must start chasing the ‘bait’ of money ever since they’re born. However, Elden’s lawyer Robert Y. Lewis argues that the presence of money in the picture makes the infant seem “like a sex worker".
The lawsuit filed in the US District Court’s central district of California (as obtained by Variety) reads, “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.”
“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.”Spencer Elden's lawsuit against Nirvana
While Spencer Elden hasn’t earlier categorised the shoot as ‘pornography’, he’s long maintained that he didn’t get any compensation for it other than the $200 his parents received for the shoot. Under the lawsuit, Elden is asking for $150,000 from each defendant. The defendants include living band members Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, Kurt Cobain’s estate managers Guy Oseary and Heather Parry, executor of Cobain’s estate Courtney Love, art director Robert Fisher, and photographer Kirk Weddle.
Ex-band member Chad Channing, who left Nirvana in 1990 and was replaced by Grohl, is also mentioned as a defendant. The album ‘Nevermind’ was recorded in 1991, and according to Time magazine, the cover picture was shot the same year. Several record companies that released the album are also named in the lawsuit.
I Got a Little Upset for a Bit: Spencer Elden
On the album’s 25th anniversary, Elden had recreated the shoot (he’d recreated it several times earlier too). “The anniversary means something to me. It’s strange that I did this for five minutes when I was 4 months old and it became this really iconic image,” he’d told New York Post.
In a Time article on the anniversary, Elden had said that he ‘got a little upset for a bit’ as he grew older. “I was trying to reach out to these people. I never met anybody. I didn’t get a call or email. I just woke up already being a part of this huge project,” he’d said, adding that it’s tough to be famous for a piece of work you didn’t contribute to.
Spencer Elden, who has the ‘Nevermind’ emblem tattooed on his chest, said in 2016 that it’s hard for him to not be upset when he hears how much money was involved.
“I go to a baseball game and think about it: ‘Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis,’ I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked.”Spencer Elden to Time Magazine
Elden’s lawsuit additionally 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.”
The lawsuit also alleges that photographer Kirk Weddle activated Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ to create an image that would “trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer.”
It also references an excerpt from Michael Azerrad’s book ‘Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana” wherein it’s said that Cobain allegedly insisted that the picture be used for the cover. Nevermind, released on 24 September 1991, was a commercial and critical success, and reached No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 a few months after its release. The album contains popular singles like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', 'Come as You Are', and 'In Bloom'.
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