“ It is kind of creepy that many people have seen me naked.” Elden said in a 2007 interview with the Sunday Times. In fact, his opinions are so disparate that many people don't believe what he is claiming nowadays. Spencer Elden have manifested his thoughts on the cover way before the unexpected lawsuit was filled thirty years after. But it’s always the record labels that make the money,” said photographer Kirk Weddle, who took the shot for the cover thirty years ago. He feels that everybody made money off it and he didn’t. I used to think, ‘man, when that kid is 16 he’s gonna hate my guts!’ He doesn’t, but he’s conflicted about the picture. The lawsuit accuses the defendants of “commercial child sexual exploitation from while he was a minor to the present day … defendants knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer” making him resemble “a sex worker – grabbing for a dollar bill”. “ This is an issue of consent – something that our client never had the opportunity to give,”Elden’s lawyer Marsh Law said. Information that contrasts with the $250 Elden would have been paid according to what was previously reported.
NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER PHOTO 26 YEARS LATER PLUS
Now mind you there are very valid questions about consent and whatnot, as obviously no baby is going to be able to reasonably consent to being photographed, but that's a whole different can of worms.The Nirvana ‘Nevermind’ baby is still chasing that dollar /n4xuOfESKf- Forbes AugElden seeks compensation for "lifelong damages"Īccording to the lawsuit, Elden is seeking $150,000 compensation f rom each of the fifteen people sued (in addition to the costs) for the damages “he has suffered from the 1991 cover over the years and is going to carry on suffering for the rest of his life, including “extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations, plus loss of education, wages, and “enjoyment of life”.Įlden also claims he was never paid for the shoot and her parents never signed a release form for the image. Are we so prudish nowadays that we can't distinguish the two? Must a naked body inherently have an immediate sexualization of it? The fact that so many people confuse nudity with sexual intent is just baffling. And of course, some copies of the album cover had the penis airbrushed out, so clearly the only problem was the genitalia, not the theme of the picture, so his argument that it makes him "like a prositute" is also silly, especially when one can distinguish between a piece of art and a real person otherwise, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a prolific mass-murderer as well as Hercules as a cyborg who can also get pregnant. If it were a baby girl, you'd see nothing due to the angle. It's simple nudity, and the only reason you can see anything is that it's a baby boy, so there's a penis. Is it technically a picture of a naked kid? Yeah, but the intent here is clearly not to sexually arouse or gratify anyone.
To be honest, the argument that it's child porn is a pretty ridiculous one too. He didn't, but he probably bought some really good Scotch with the proceeds. If your Dad sold it for $200, that sucks, he should've found out what it was for and signed a licensing agreement. It's become an indelible part of pop culture as a symbolic work of art. I've never really cared for the cover, I don't really like looking at naked babies, but it is an iconic cover. It sounds like if anyone should be sued for distributing child pornography, it's the Dad and his friend the one who actually distributed the picture to Nirvana. His Dad just let some photographer friend take (I believe it was 40 pictures) of his naked 4 month old in a swimming pool. From what I can gather, there was no mention of it being on an album cover, no contract with Nirvana, they didn't know what it was for. His Dad knew a photographer who said he'd give him $200 for a picture of his infant naked in a swimming pool.
So they found out they only got $200, he got dollars signs in his eyes, and pressed Spencer further and further that there was a legitimate lawsuit. It is an iconic cover of an iconic album after all. The lawyer may have focused in on that, asking questions about how much he or his family got paid for that. I don't think it's out of the realm that he met a lawyer through happenstance, and he mentioned to said lawyer that he was the baby on the cover. If you were so against it, you should've been against it then. Considering that before this he was at least more than comfortable with being known as the baby, no, sorry, you don't get to about-face years later.