“This unprecedented album cover is perhaps the first and only time a child’s full-frontal nudity has been used to sell a product,” Elden’s attorneys said, per USA Today. The initial lawsuit was filed in August 2021, claiming that his legal guardians never signed a release “authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him.” He said that the photo where he is pictured naked in a swimming pool has caused him ”permanent emotional distress,” per BBC.Īccording to Pitchfork, Elden claimed that Nirvana, photographer Kurt Weddle and a number of record labels “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.” Spencer Elden, who was pictured in Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ album as a child, claims that the photo constitutes child pornography, filing papers to meet a deadline that can reinstate the lawsuit.

1991 nirvana nevermind cover