Rolling Stone reports that Spencer Elden, the man who claims he was the baby featured on the cover of NIRVANA’s “Nevermind” album, has refiled his lawsuit against the infamous grunge act, after a judge dismissed the lawsuit last week.
Last August, Spencer Elden alleged that the image taken of him in the swimming pool which adorns the iconic album cover, violates federal child pornography statutes and argues child sexual exploitation.
In the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, which also names photographer Kirk Weddle and the various record companies behind the album’s release, Elden claims 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.”
According to the suit, 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.”
Elden also says that his parents never signed a release for use of the photo, which was taken in a Pasadena aquatic center back in 1990. He also alleges that NIRVANA promised to cover his genitals with a sticker, which obviously never happened.
In last month’s motion to dismiss, NIRVANA, as well as Kurt Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, had asked the court to throw out the lawsuit insisting that his claim was “barred by the applicable statute of limitations.”
On January 3, Judge Fernando M. Olguin, who was presiding over the case at the U.S. District Court in Central California, dismissed the case after Elden missed his December 30 deadline to file an opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss. However, Elden had the option to refile an amended lawsuit by January 13, which he has now done.
Filed on Wednesday (January 12), Elden now claims that NIRVANA “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.” However, the second amended complaint drops a claim related to sex trafficking. Elden’s prior suit alleged that the defendants did “knowingly benefit from participation in what they know or should know is a sex trafficking venture.”
