“[Elden’s] willingness to associate himself with the cover over the years — such as selling autographed copies of the cover and at one point recreating the photograph as an adult for a paying gig — proved he didn’t suffer any damages.” per JOE.
Elden, who was fourth months old at the time the image was taken, was photographed by his dad’s friend, Weddle,
after the photographer offered the infant’s parents $200 to plunge him into the water at Pasadena Aquatic Center in California.
Since then, Elden has profited many times off the image, calling himself the ‘Nirvana baby’ – facts that were brought up in the lawsuit by the defendants’ legal team.
People have been left confused after Elden’s opinion on the album cover have changed drastically throughout the past three decades, despite maintaining during the lawsuit that the image has caused him “extreme and permanent emotional distress,” per The Guardian.
In fact, in 2015, Elden told the paper that the cover has “always been a positive thing and opened doors for me.” Then, a year later, he told GQ Australia that he was “p****d off” at the images that he believes were rather up.”
Some people have even taken to Twitter to call out Elden’s apparent hypocrisy, with one person writing in several tweets:
“Google Spencer Elden before the case gets thrown out […] has trouble justifying the multiple times he’s recreated the shot as an adult…”
The Tweet references a set of images of Elden recreating the album cover – that he deemed as having affected his “income earning capacity” – as an adult.
