Spencer Elden, the (former) baby swimming on the cover of Nirvana's classic 1991 Nevermind album, filed a lawsuit against Nirvana and entities associated with the band back in August claiming that the iconic cover image is child pornography. The lawsuit was dismissed back in December, though Elden's team had until January 13 to refile the lawsuit. Which they did.
According to Rolling Stone, the new lawsuit drops the "sex trafficking" part but now claims the band "intentionally commercially marketed the child pornography depicting Spencer and leveraged the lascivious nature of his image to promote the Nevermind album, the band, and Nirvana's music, while earning, at a minimum, tens of millions of dollars in the aggregate."
The new suit also uses alternate artwork from Nevermind art director Robert Fisher (who was dropped from the lawsuit) that does not contain nudity. Elden's team claims that this "suggests it proves the band made a deliberate decision to go in a different direction artistically."
Nirvana's camp previously called Elden's lawsuit "not serious," claiming that Elden has "spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed 'Nirvana Baby'" and assert that his lawsuit "will fail on the merits." The parties also make the argument that a photo of a naked baby is not child pornography.
Grohl also recently reacted to the lawsuit, not really saying much outside "Listen, [Elden] got a Nevermind tattoo. I don't."
