Nirvana wins 'naked baby' legal battle. Plea by 'Nevermind' cover model dismissed

Spencer Elden, now a 30-year-old man, was the baby seen on the group's 'Nevermind' album cover in 1991.

A US judge has thrown out a lawsuit against Nirvana made by the man who appeared as a naked baby on the cover of the band's classic 1991 album 'Nevermind'.

Judge Fernando Olguin dismissed the case in California District Court on Monday after lawyers for Spencer Elden missed the deadline to file an opposition to the Nirvana estate's request to dismiss last month, reports Daily Mail.

Elden claims he was the victim of child exploitation and that the cover amounted to child porn. He has until January 13 to refile.

He model claims that appearing on the album cover caused 'extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations”, as well as loss of education, wages and “enjoyment of life”.

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Lawyers for the band’s estate – surviving members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s widow and executor; and Kirk Weddle, the photographer of the cover image – said Elden had 'spent three decades profiting from his celebrity as the self-anointed "Nirvana Baby."'

The former baby re-enacted the photo for money 'many times,' the lawyers said, even had the album title tattooed across his chest, appeared on a talk show wearing a self-parodying nude-colored onesie and had 'used the connection to try to pick up women.'

Lawyers for the band's estate said that Spencer Elden had re-enacted the photo for money 'many times', even had the album title tattooed across his chest, appeared on a talk show wearing a self-parodying nude-colored onesie. (Image credit: Splash News)
The legal team said that the statute of limitations had expired and that Elden's claims were too 'absurd' to even consider.

Meanwhile, in interviews with Variety and other publications this year, Elden's lawyers have said that victims of child pornography or other kinds of abuse often take decades to come to terms with the fact that they were abused, and that their client is no different in this regard and should not be held to earlier statements in which he expressed positive or ambivalent feelings about the 'Nevermind' cover.

"I think when something like this happens, the only person who can understand what it's like to be in Spencer's shoes is Spencer," one of his attorneys, Maggie Mabie, told Variety in August.

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