Nirvana is now claiming that the photographer who took the photo of Nirvana’s naked baby was child pornography. Never mind’s cover also shot images of the same baby, Spencer Elden, styled to look like PlayboyHugh Hefner was the founder.
Elden, now aged 30, added the allegation in his amended complaint filed Monday. The amended complaint also dropped Channing, former drummer of Nirvana, as a defendant. It also uncovered disturbing journal entries that were attributed to Kurt Cobain, the late frontman of Nirvana.
The new complaint, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, seeks to bolster Elden’s position that the photo of him at four months old, shot by photographer Kirk Weddle and used on the Seattle band’s seminal album, was intended to be sexual in nature. It reiterates the claim that Weddle intended it to “trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer”By activating “Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals.” Then without elaboration, it adds the line: “Weddle soon after produced photographs of Spencer dressed up and depicted as Hugh Hefner.”
Bob Lewis, who was the lawyer who filed an amended complaint, did no immediate respond to a request for comment. Rolling Stone.
In another new section of the updated complaint, Elden’s camp highlights excerpts from Cobain’s personal journals, which were published by Riverhead Books in 2002, ostensibly to further build the case that the Never mindCover was intended to be “lascivious.”
The new paperwork says: “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 fuck the incision until the child dies.’”
The lawyer listed on the court’s website as representing the remaining band member defendants did not respond to phone and email requests for comment from Rolling Stone Monday.
Channing was not named in the amended complaint. Neither is Warner Music, Heather Parry, or Guy Oseary. Parry and Oseary were previously listed as managers of Cobain’s estate. The new paperwork still includes Courtney Love, the estate’s executor, as a defendant.
Love and the other defendants failed to return Rolling Stone’sElden filed his first lawsuit on Aug. 24, and received several requests for comment. Love did respond, however, in a cryptic mannerNext day’s Instagram postWrite a caption “I don’t even hate the legal profession in LA county… I’ve got nothing much on my mind. Except weird lawsuits and the sad passing of Charlie Watts.”
Elden claims that Elden has suffered “extreme and permanent emotional distress”Due to the cover and are seeking “at minimum”Each defendant will receive $150,000 He denies he or his guardians did it. “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.”
Elden’s father, who was friends with Weddle, previously toldNPR that he and Elden’s mom were paid $200 for the shoot at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, California.
Channing was named in Elden’s original lawsuit even though he left Nirvana in 1990, a year before NevermindThis helped the band achieve worldwide fame.