According to CNN, the child pornography lawsuit against Nirvana was dropped after a judge in a California federal court ruled that plaintiff Spencer Elden had filed the complaint after the 10 year statute of limitations had expired. The case was originally brought to court with Elden claiming that the band had committed alleged “commercial child sexual exploitation” by using a naked baby photo of him on their 1991 album Nevermind. 

The dismissal of the suit follows its refilling back in January after initially missing the December deadline to file for opposition. The lawsuit was first filed in August 2021 with Elden and his legal team arguing that the use of his photo on the cover of the iconic grunge album constituted alleged child pornography. At one point, the prosecution cited entries from Kurt Cobain’s journal to try and prove their case. The surviving members of the band filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit which were eventually successful.

Dave Grohl has made his opinion on the issue quite clear, pointing out that Elden has a tattoo of the Nevermind album cover art and that he disagrees with the claims in the case. In the original testimony, Elden claimed that due to the use of his photo on the album, he experienced “lifelong loss of income earning capacity, loss of past and future wages, past and future expenses for medical and psychological treatment, loss of enjoyment of life, and other losses to be described and proven at the trial of this matter.”

Elden has recreated the image several times throughout his adult life but states his uncomfortability with becoming known as the “Nirvana baby” due to the album cover’s popularity in the public eye.