The man who claims his appearance as a naked baby on the cover of Nirvana’s iconic album ‘Nevermind’ was child pornography has lost another lawsuit against the band.
’Nevermind’, Nirvana’s most successful album, was released in 1991; it included the hit song ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Its cover features four-month-old Spencer Elden swimming towards a dollar bill attached to a fishing hook.
Elden, who is now 34, initially filed a lawsuit against the band in 2021, claiming that his name has been “forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor.” The next year, US District Judge Fernando Olguin dismissed the case because it was submitted after the ten-year filing limit, but did not address the substance of the allegations.
However, after an appeals court reversed the decision, Elden again sued surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, late front man Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and photographer Kirk Weddle in 2022, seeking at least $150,000 from each of the defendants.
On Tuesday, Olguin threw out the case for the second time, saying that no reasonable jury would find the cover of ‘Nevermind’ to be pornographic. The image was more like a “family photo of a nude child bathing,” he argued.
“Neither the pose, focal point, setting, nor overall context suggest the album cover features sexually explicit conduct,” the judge ruled.
Nirvana’s lawyer Bert Deixler said in a statement that his team was “delighted that the court has ended this meritless case and freed our creative clients of the stigma of false allegations.”
A law firm representing Elden’s interests told the Rolling Stone on Wednesday that they “respectfully disagree” with Olguin’s decision and plan to appeal against it. “As long as the entertainment industry prioritizes profits over childhood privacy, consent, and dignity, we will continue our pursuit for awareness and accountability,” it said.
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