The man who was the baby featured on the cover of NIRVANA’s “Nevermind” album, Spencer Elden, has amended his lawsuit against the iconic grunge era group to include the allegation that the hired photographer, who initially took the record sleeve cover, also shot pictures of Elden dressed up like Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The amended lawsuit also drops former NIRVANA drummer Chad Channing as a defendant.
According to Rolling Stone, Elden’s updated complaint cites journal entries from late NIRVANA frontman Kurt Cobain to try to prove that photographer Kirk Weddle intended the album cover to be sexually based.
“Undated journals written by Cobain sketch the album cover in a sexual manner, with semen all over it,” the document states. “In several instances, the journals describe Cobain’s twisted vision for the ‘Nevermind’ album cover, along with his emotional struggles: ‘I like to make incisions into the belly of infants then fuck the incision until the child dies.'”
Elden also makes the claim that Weddle intended to “trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer” by activating “Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals.” The documents add: “Weddle soon after produced photographs of Spencer dressed up and depicted as Hugh Hefner.”
When Elden first filed his lawsuit back in August against the surviving members of NIRVANA and the estate of Kurt Cobain, he alleged the photo of the baby reaching for a dollar in a swimming pool violated federal child pornography statutes and claimed child sexual exploitation.
After the lawsuit was filed, Elden requested his genitalia be removed from “all future album covers” on the 30th anniversary of the record.
“Today, like each year on this date, our client Spencer Elden has had to brace himself for renewed unwanted attention from the media and fans alike throughout the world,” his attorneys told USA Today. “This is a choice that he has never had.”
“We implore the NIRVANA defendants to right the wrongs of their past, by acknowledging the harm they have perpetrated and redacting the image of Mr. Elden’s genitalia from further reproductions of ‘Nevermind’ because behind every cover is a person pleading for their privacy back,” they added.
The deluxe 30th-anniversary reissue of “Nevermind”, which features it’s original cover artwork, was released on November 12.