The man pictured as the naked baby on Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover has revived his “child pornography” lawsuit against the band after it was dismissed by a federal judge in California last week.
Spencer Elden filed his second amended complaint late Wednesday, meeting a deadline set by Judge Fernando M. Olguin to reinstate the claims. The judge previously tossed the case Jan. 3 on the grounds Elden had failed to respond to a motion to dismiss filed by Nirvana and the other defendants last month.
In his new filing, Elden, now 30, drops his claim related to sex trafficking after Nirvana’s lawyers argued the alleged trafficking of Elden occurred before lawmakers made it possible for victims to sue using the federal sex-trafficking-of-children statute.
The latest complaint also includes an attached statement from Robert Fisher, an art director for the Nevermind cover who was dropped as a defendant in the lawsuit on Dec. 22. The statement, dated Dec. 21, attaches artwork purported to be Fisher’s original mock-up of the cover using a stock image. The mock-up has a different naked baby in a pose that doesn’t show any genitalia. Elden’s complaint points this out and suggests it proves the band made a deliberate decision to go in a different direction artistically.