Nirvana’s 1991 record Nevermind, which depicts a naked baby floating in a pool, went down in rock history as one of the most iconic — yet controversial — album covers of all time. However, now that the baby is a grown adult, he’s taking legal action against the band.
The cover’s infant model, Spencer Elden, is now 32-years-old. Back in 2021, Elden sued the band and Kurt Cobain’s estate, claiming the group “knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography.” While Elden’s suits were previously dismissed in the past, including for a third time in 2022 due to the statue of limitations, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision to throw-out the lawsuit.
The court claimed that the statue of limitations had not passed because Nirvana republished the Nevermind cover for its 30th anniversary in 2021. According to TMZ, the court said “each republication of the cover may constitute a new injury to Elden.”
“Victims of child pornography may suffer a new injury upon the republication of the pornographic material,” Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote. “This conclusion is consistent with the Supreme Court’s view that every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim’s abuse.”
Now, Elden must bring his suit to a lower court where he has to prove the image can be defined as child pornography.
Nevermind, which topped the Billboard 200 and produced smash-hits like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “In Bloom,” sold more than 30 million copies. The cover image shows the baby being lured after a dollar bill on a hook — something often described as an ode to capitalism. However, Spencer called the album cover a “lascivious” display of a minor’s genitals.
“Spencer’s true identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day,” the 2021 suit claimed.
Nirvana negates these claims of child pornography and argued that Elden knew he was the baby in the photograph prior to the original statue of limitations 10-year cut-off. The band’s lawyer Bert Deixler told Billboard in a statement they “will defend this meritless case with vigor and expect to prevail.”
Former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl suggested that the image could be changed for future releases, noting that he has “many ideas of how we should alter that cover but we’ll see what happens.” Grohl was also named in the lawsuit alongside Universal Music Group and a handful of other individuals.
