Thirty-year-old from Los Angeles Spencer Elden, who appeared on the cover of the famous album when he was a few months old Nevermind of Nirvana, sued to former band members and people involved in making the album claiming to have been exploited. Although he had agreed to recreate the cover pose on several occasions to celebrate various anniversaries of the record, Elden had said in the past that the fact that he became famous for the photo had often made him feel uncomfortable: now his lawyers claim that the cover for how it was thought it can be considered a child pornography content.
Elden was born in February 1991, a few months before the release of Nevermind, which was released the following September by Geffen Records and became the most famous album of the band of Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 1994. On the cover of the album Elden is a child swimming in a pool towards a banknote hanging from a hook and is completely naked, with his genitals visible.
In general, the cover of Nevermind it has been interpreted as a critique of capitalism, and according to American law images of naked children who have no elements to be considered sexual content are not considered pornographic. According to prosecution documents, filed in a Californian court e seen by Variety, however, Nirvana intentionally used the child’s “child pornography” image for commercial purposes and “exploited the shocking nature of his image” to “provoke an instinctive sexual reaction” in the viewer and promote the band at Elden’s expense.
Elden’s lawyers – who also has “Nevermind” tattooed on his chest – added that the photograph caused their client “permanent damage” and that the presence of the dollar bill somehow suggests that the child may be ” a sex worker “.
Spencer Elden, who as a baby appeared naked on the cover of @Nirvana‘s ‘Nevermind,’ is suing the band, calling the album art child pornography https://t.co/4sTQstzUBV pic.twitter.com/D0ySCZ5ww2
— Stereogum (@stereogum) August 25, 2021
In particular, Elden is asking for at least $ 150,000 in damages from each of the people involved in the creation of the cover and distribution of the album, including two former Nirvana members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; Kurt Cobain’s ex-wife Courtney Love; the photographer who took the photo, Kirk Weddle; the album’s artistic director, Robert Fisher; the folks managing Cobain’s legacy, and various representatives of the record labels that have released and distributed the record over the past thirty years.
– Read also: History and successes of Nevermind
In recent years Elden had already spoken a few times about his relationship with the cover. In an interview published on Time on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Nevermind, he had said that the idea behind the photo was “brilliant”, but that the fact that he had achieved a certain stardom that way had made him “uncomfortable for a while.” Among other things, Elden had said that her parents had never explicitly authorized the use of the photo, and had also sued Geffen for never receiving compensation for his performance, losing it.
In 2008 Elden’s father Nick he had told NPR the story of how his son’s iconic photograph was born. Weddle, who was a friend of his, contacted him in the summer of 1991 to offer him to take some photos of Spencer in exchange for $ 200, as he also had to photograph other children in a Los Angeles swimming pool. Elden said he accepted and did not imagine what would happen to the photos.
According to what the article by NPR, three months later Elden recognized the photo of his son in a billboard in a record store on Sunset Boulevard: after a few weeks, the Elden received a platinum disc and a teddy bear from Geffen, for Spencer.
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