After filing a lawsuit against Nirvana for apparently exploiting his likeness, Spencer Elden appears to have said never mind to it all. Elden failed to meet the deadline to respond to the band’s motion to dismiss a suit in which Elden claimed that the iconic cover of Nirvana’s album Nevermind, which features him as a naked 4-month old infant in a swimming pool, constituted child pornography, leading the California judge presiding over the case to indeed toss out the lawsuit.
Elden first sued the band in August, predicating his case on the dollar bill on the cover that was digitally inserted. The image looks as if Elden’s infant self is swimming toward a bill attached to a fish hook — a representation that, he claimed, frames him as a “sex worker.” The suit was looking for $150,000 from Nirvana’s surviving members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, along with Courtney Love, the album cover’s photographer and art director, the managers of Kurt Cobain’s estate, and the record companies involved with Nevermind. The original shoot itself paid Elden’s parents $200 and reportedly lasted some 15 seconds.
