(CN) — The nude baby featured prominently on Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind, now 30, is taking several music companies and affiliates of the grunge band — including Kurt Cobain’s estate and Courtney Love — to court over child pornography allegations arising from the infamous album cover.
Spencer Elden, who lives in Los Angeles county, says he was just a four-month old baby when he was photographed at the Pasadena Aquatic Center in 1991 for Nirvana’s album. Founded just a few years prior, the band was primarily known as a staple of Seattle’s grunge scene and had yet to become a household name.
According to Elden, lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain and others wanted an album cover that would invoke a visceral response from the viewer, paving the way for a now-widely known album cover that depicts the four-month old underwater and grabbing for a dollar bill dangling from a hook, all while nude with his penis exposed.
But in a newly filed lawsuit, Elden alleges that the album went well beyond creating a shocking front cover — and in fact represents a blatant violation of federal criminal child pornography statutes.
In the 35-page complaint filed Tuesday in California district court, Elden claims that photographer Kirk Weddle conducted a photoshoot where he took a series of sexually graphic nude pictures of Elden and went so far as to induce the baby’s “gag reflex” for the shoot.
“To ensure the album cover would trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer, Weddle activated Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals,” the complaint states.
While dozens of pictures were taken that day, Cobain reportedly picked the image that depicted the baby “like a sex worker” to be the one that would adorn the album’s cover.
Cobain allegedly received some pushback from others and agreed to release the album with a sticker placed over Elden’s penis that read “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.”
The sticker never made its way unto the album cover, and the album — which would go on to become certified platinum shortly after release and stands as one of the band’s best-selling works — was released without any censoring of Elden’s genitals.
Elden also says he was never compensated for any of the album’s success, and his legal guardians at the time reportedly never signed a release that authorized the use of the images.
Now, Elden says, the album’s iconic status and reputation have forever linked him to an album cover that sexually exploited him.
“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,” according to the complaint.
Elden is asking a California judge to grant permanent injunctive relief and is asking for a series of damage awards, including possible alternative liquidated damages of $150,000 from each defendant named in the lawsuit.
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