It’s strange that I did this for five minutes when I was 4 months old and it became this really iconic image. In 2016, the last time Spencer recreated the pose as an adult, he told the New York Post, “The anniversary means something to me. The filing references some famous, or infamous, moments in rock album art history: “The concept and creation of this image replicated previous controversial campaigns used to promote music with sexually explicit material depicting a child or outright child pornography, including the album covers for Scorpion’s ‘Virgin Killer,’ Blind Faith’s ‘Blind Faith’ and Van Halen’s ‘Balance.'” “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,” reads the suit. A possibly new contention in the lawsuit is that Elden’s parents never even signed paperwork allowing any use of the image. In previous interviews, he’s said he tried to get in touch with Grohl and Novoselic, on a friendly basis, but never got a reply. What was a constant, in the past as now, is that Elden has said he was never compensated for the photo beyond the $200 his parents were paid for it on the day of the shoot. Until now, despite his ongoing ambivalence about the photo’s legacy, he hadn’t described it as pornographic.
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However, in most of the interviews accompanying these photo shoots, he expressed deeply mixed feelings about being famous for the “Nevermind” cover and whether he was exploited by it. The cover art subject - who, like the “Nevermind” album itself, is now 30 - is asking at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, who include include surviving band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic Courtney Love, the executor of Kurt Cobain’s estate Guy Oseary and Heather Parry, managers of Cobain’s estate photographer Kirk Weddle art director Robert Fisher and a number of existing or defunct record companies that released or distributed the album in the last three decades.Ĭuriously, original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing is also named as a defendant who was part of the group at the time, even though he had been replaced by Grohl in 1990, before the album was recorded or the cover photography shot.Įlden has repeatedly recreated the pose as a teenager and adult, diving into pools to pose (with swim trunks on) on the occasion of the album’s 10th, 17th, 20th and 25th anniversaries.
![nirvana nevermind cover boy nirvana nevermind cover boy](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2f/4a/d8/2f4ad84fb8c3534c319136638186adf4.jpg)
“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.” District Court’s central district of California and obtained by Variety. 30 to respond to the motion, but his legal team missed the deadline and so the case was dismissed.“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,” reads the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. The defendants in the case - which included former band members, as well as Kurt Cobain's estate, photographer Kirk Weddle, Universal Music, Geffen Records, Warner Records and MCA Music - filed a motion to dismiss the case last month.Įlden had until Dec.
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Now 30, he was seeking $150,000 in damages. Elden was just 4 months old when he was photographed for the cover. Spencer Elden sued former members of the band in August 2021 for child exploitation and pornography, saying the band knowingly distributed a naked photo of him as a baby on the 1991 album cover and profited from it. Nirvana artifacts and exhibits are seen at the opening of "In Bloom: The Nirvana Exhibition," marking the 20th anniversary of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind album, in 2011 at the Loading Bay Gallery in London.Ī judge in California has dismissed a lawsuit filed against former band members of Nirvana over their iconic Nevermind album cover.