UPDATE: Nirvana responds to Nevermind baby's refiled lawsuit
Nirvana’s estate has until January 27 to reply to the refiled suit
UPDATE, Feb. 1: As reported by SPIN, Nirvana has filed a second motion to dismiss Spencer Elden’s lawsuit. In documents obtained by the publication, Nirvana’s attorney says “this case must end.” The band also asked the court “for an order dismissing this action, with prejudice [and] on the ground that it is barred by the statute of limitations.”
There will be a hearing on February 24 in Los Angeles.
Spencer Elden—the man who appeared on the album art for Nirvana’s Nevermind as a baby—has refiled his lawsuit against the band, alleging that the photograph constitutes as child pornography.
As previously reported on January 4, a judge had dismissed Elden’s initial lawsuit after Elden missed the deadline to file an opposition to Nirvana’s lawyer’s request. Nirvana’s estate asked for the suit to be dropped due to the statute of limitations expiring in 2011 and Elden’s prior history of profiting off and proudly touting being the “Nirvana Baby.” Elden previously participated in numerous photoshoots to celebrate the album’s anniversaries over the years.
Elden was given a January 13 deadline to adjust the suit, and according to court documents seen by The A.V. Club (and first obtained by Deadline), he refiled the suit on January 12. In the suit, Elden’s attorney Robert Lewis alleges that the defendants “knowingly possessed, transported, reproduced, advertised, promoted, presented, distributed, provided, and/or obtained child pornography depicting Spencer, who had not attained the age of 18 years when this image was printed on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album.”
Additionally, Lewis also cites Kurt Cobain’s journal entries as “proof” that the band had pedophilic intentions with the album art, using the following entry as one of the examples:
I haven’t masturbated in months because I’ve lost my imagination. I close my eyes and I see my father, little girls, German Shepards & TV news commentators, but no voluptuous, pouty lipped, naked-female sex kittens, wincing in ecstasy from the illusory positions I’ve conjured up in my mind. No, when I close my eyes I see lizards & flipper babies, the ones who were born deformed because their mothers took bad birth control pills. I’m seriously afraid to touch myself.
As The A.V. Club previously reported, with Elden making the new deadline, Nirvana’s estate now has until January 27 to reply to the refiled suit.