Recently I’ve been thinking, ‘What if I wasn’t OK with my freaking penis being shown to everybody?’ I didn’t really have a choice.”

In recent years, however, he’s had a change of heart, telling the Australian GQ, “It’s fucked up. He has reenacted the iconic underwater photo several times throughout his life - most recently in 2016, when he and the album turned 25 - and he has “Nevermind” tattooed across his chest. 'He has been fully aware of the facts of both the supposed 'violation' and 'injury' for decades.'Īdditionally, the estate asserts that Elden's lawsuit, if successful, would then criminally implicate every owner of Nevermind. 'Elden's claim that the photograph on the Nevermind album cover is 'child pornography' is, on its face, not serious,' the band wrote. 'A brief examination of the photograph, or Elden's own conduct (not to mention the photograph's presence in the homes of millions of Americans who, on Elden’s theory, are guilty of felony possession of child pornography), makes that clear.Spencer Elden, the man who appeared on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album when he was a baby, embraced his role in rock history for many years. 'Long before 2011, as Elden has pled, Elden knew about the photograph, and knew that he (and not someone else) was the baby in the photograph,' the statement said.

The suit is valid only 10 years from the point that a victim 'reasonably discovers' it, and the estate claims that Elden was familiar with the photograph's notoriety before 2011, when Elden was 20 years old. In a statement last month, the Nirvana estate maintained that not only has Elden profited from his role in the album's cover art but that the statute of limitations for a federal child-pornography lawsuit has almost certainly already expired.

Nirvana nevermind cover picture