The legal case surrounding Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ artwork has been dismissed.
The album was released in 1991, with its instantly iconic artwork subsequently achieving global fame in its own right.
Featuring a naked baby – real name Spencer Elden – swimming after a dollar bill, the image seemed to capture the band’s own attitudes to becoming embroiled in the Geffen universe.
Spencer Elden brought a legal challenge to use of the cover in 2021, claiming that he was the victim of child sexual exploitation and that the cover artwork was a child sexual abuse image.
A lawsuit against surviving members of the band and related estates reads: “Defendants knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer…”
The plaintiff said that his appearance on the ‘Nevermind’ cover caused him “extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations”, plus loss of education, wages and “enjoyment of life”.
As Spin reports, the challenge has been dismissed by California District Court; in a hearing on Monday, Judge Fernando M Olguin dismissed the case “with leave to amend”.
Lawyers for Elden missed the deadline to file an opposition to the Nirvana estate’s request to dismiss the case back in December – his team have until January 13th to refile.
Nirvana’s legal team pointed to Spencer Elden’s previous media work surrounding the album’s 15th and 20th anniversaries, while he also has the title tattooed on his chest.
They claimed that Elden “spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed ‘Nirvana Baby’… A brief examination of the photograph, or Elden’s own conduct (not to mention the photograph’s presence in the homes of millions of Americans who, on Elden’s theory, are guilty of felony possession of child pornography) makes that clear.”
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