Spencer Elden, otherwise known as the “Nirvana Baby,” or the baby pictured on the cover of the grunge band’s iconic Nevermind album, has amended his lawsuit against the band, dropping defendants and adding entries from frontman Kurt Cobain’s diary.
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The 30-year-old Elden removed Nirvana drummer Chad Channing from the suit. Channing played in the band and on Nevermind a little bit before Dave Grohl took over responsibilities.
In the lawsuit, Elden alleges that the Nevermind cover, which shows him naked in a swimming pool with his genitalia showing, was intentionally created to “trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer.”
Elden alleges that proof of this intent was that the photographer who produced the album cover, Kirk Weddle, also “produced” photos of Elden made to look like Playboy founder, Hugh Hefner, after the swimming pool shoot.
“Weddle soon after produced photographs of Spencer dressed up and depicted as Hugh Hefner,” says the amended lawsuit, according to Rolling Stone.
To date, many professionals and fans have called the lawsuit frivolous. Grohl has even alluded to it as such, noting that Elden has a Nevermind tattoo “and I don’t.”
Yet, Elden’s legal team continues to go through with the suit, now amending it and bringing in Cobain’s diaries as evidence.
The amended suit reads: “Undated journals written by Cobain sketch the album cover in a sexual manner, with semen all over it. 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 f**k the incision until the child dies.’
The revised lawsuit also removes Warner Music as a defendant, as well as Heather Parry and Guy Oseary (previously listed as managers of Cobain’s estate). Former Nirvana members Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well as Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, the estate’s executor, are still named among the defendants.
“Elden claims to have suffered ‘extreme and permanent emotional distress because of the cover (despite participating in re-creations of the shoot multiple times and sporting a Nevermind tattoo) and seeks ‘at minimum’ $150,000 from each defendant. He also says neither of his guardians ‘ever signed a release authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him.'”
