Nearly everyone is familiar with the unusual album cover for grunge rock band Nirvana’s 1991 album ‘Nevermind’. And that’s the problem for the now 30-year-old man who featured on that cover as a baby.
Spencer Elden, of Los Angeles, has filed a lawsuit claiming that the usage of the image — where he is seen in the nude in a swimming in a pool at four months old — constitutes as child pornography and caused him lifelong suffering due to the global scrutiny the picture got him.
He alleged that his “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 complaint read, according to Deadline.
The lawsuit adds that the defendants “knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so… Despite this knowledge, defendants failed to take reasonable steps to protect Spencer and prevent his widespread sexual exploitation and image trafficking.”
According to reports, Elden is seeking at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, which includes Courtney Love, the wife of late member Kurt Cobain and the executor of his estate; surviving band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; photographer Kirk Weddle and art director Robert Fisher, among others.
