Strange Things That Have Happened To Saint West

The world is expecting big things from Saint West, the middle child of reality mogul Kim Kardashian and rapper Kanye West. As the baby bro to sister North "Nori" West and the big bro to baby girl Chicago West, Saint holds a very special place in the growing superstar fam.

Instantly being super famous the second he was born on Dec. 5, 2015 is probably the oddest thing to ever happen to the little one, but we cannot discredit the abnormalities that inherently come with bringing a celebrity baby into the world. From contraction selfies to missing aunties, to supernatural social media predictions, there are a bunch of weird reasons you actually wouldn't want to be born with a platinum and diamond-encrusted spoon in your mouth. (Who are we kidding? That actually still sounds great.) These are the strange things that have happened to Saint West.

With fashion maven mom Kim Kardashian and designer-by-day/musician-by-night dad Kanye West as parents, it really isn't strange to picture Saint decked out in haute couture even to play in the mud. Reminder: Saint's diaper bag was a $23,000 Birken. When comparing him to kids living outside that rarified air — tykes whose parents get mad if they tear a hole in their $8 Carter's sweatpants — his wardrobe can seem oddly excessive. Case in point: When Saint was just 6 months old, Kardashian posted photos of some of his gear on her website (via Harper's Bazaar), including a custom Ralph Lauren bomber jacket. 

Because tailor-made Ralph Lauren jackets aren't everyday wear, Saint also has a different custom-made leather bomber jacket from lesser-known L.A. designer Ben Taverniti's Unravel line, which matches one made for his mama. Other pieces from that collection — not custom designed for reality TV royalty — retail online for more than $1,500, so it's easy to imagine these mother-and-son threads are worth much more. 

Decked out in white-on-white, Saint West was exposed to the paparazzi for the first time in Havana during a Kardashian family trip to Cuba that also happened to be captured on camera for Keeping up with the Kardashians. It looked to be a calculated move for the press-savvy family. The blessed tot was snapped as he, his parents, and his sister, North West, arrived at their hotel clad in fashionable garb, driven from the airport in a tricked out vintage car. 

It's almost like they were expecting to be seen or something, but nah, it was probably just a coincidence seeing as how there are tons of paparazzi in Cuba all the time. Remember all those tabloid covers featuring Fidel Castro playing volleyball on the beach with Brad and Angelina, or Oprah revealing that the shocking secret to her weight loss is hand-rolled Cohibas? What a lucky break for those Cuban photographers who work for notoriously press-restricted publications, and who were not-at-all foreigners tipped off by Kris Jenner or E! Did you pick up on our sarcasm back there? Because we were laying it on pretty thick.

According to TMZ, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were courted by multiple magazines for the coveted first photos of baby Saint. The estimated offers were reportedly as high as $2.5 million, which is probably slightly more than any of our parents were offered for the Sears Portrait Studio session taken when we were his age. You probably don't remember peeing on the photographer's best blanket.

Surprisingly, the usually very public celebrity duo chose none of those offers and instead debuted the heavenly one on Kim's website and app. That may sound like a missed opportunity, but both of those are subscription-based services that Kim launched alongside identical versions for all of her sisters, which were collectively projected to rake in $32 million in their first year. So, they got a way better deal is what we're saying, and it was an adorable pic, too.

In the coveted first photo (above), little Saint wears a simple knit shirt and appears to be sleeping with both arms raised over his head — probably dreaming about the fact that he can't even walk, but people are already throwing cash at him like he won the lottery.

A true 21st century digital boy, Saint heard the Instagram upload and immediately came a runnin'. Well, that's what we'd like to think happened. Cosmopolitan reported that on Dec. 4, 2015, Kim Kardashian uploaded a selfie of her baby bump with the caption "Ready whenever you are lol" to Instagram just moments before going into labor. Um, okay. Kardashian announced the apparently prescient one's birth the next day on — where else? — her app and website, with a simple message that read: "Kim Kardashian and Kanye West welcomed the arrival of their son this morning. Mother and son are doing well."

So, Saint spoke fluent Instagram in utero and, honestly, probably has more followers than you, too. We're not surprised, coming from a family of media mavens, but seriously, let's just take a step back here. We're suggesting an Instagram upload triggered labor? That's evolution for the new millennium.

Considering you have nine months — nine months! — to think about what to name your child, everyone thought Kim and Kanye were being coy about announcing his name when Baby Boy West was born. It turns out, they couldn't announce a name because they allegedly didn't have a name. An insider told Us Weekly before the birth, "They are asking everyone they know for ideas!"

Whether that's true or not, it took a solid two days for Kardashian to finally tweet Saint's name and mercifully allow the Earth to once again spin on its axis. So, what's the meaning behind such a divine designation? To be honest, no one knows for sure, but E! News reported that sources close to the superstar parents chose it because "it's akin to saying he is 'a blessing,' especially 'because [Kardashian] had such a difficult pregnancy.'" People, also citing unnamed sources, reported that the couple went "back and forth for a while," but ultimately it was West who held the deciding vote. "He believes that people live up to their names," a source told the mag, "Which is why he wanted a name with spiritual significance." Nailed it, Yeezus.

This was not your average pregnancy. As was the case with her first pregnancy with her daughter North, Kim Kardashian had enough complications with Saint to make any mom cringe in empathy. Can we take a moment to recognize the strength of this woman? 

Kardashian revealed on her app and website (via People) that while pregnant with Saint, her doctors monitored her for "complications related to preeclampsia," which she also dealt with while carrying North. A week before Saint's birth, Kim reportedly went into the hospital for an External Cephalic Version, essentially a breech reversal surgery, which she described to E! Online as "more painful than childbirth."

That is an especially remarkable statement coming from her, considering she shared how she suffered from "placenta accreta" during North's birth. She also described that condition on her website and app (via Entertainment Tonight) like this: "My placenta stayed attached inside my uterus ... My doctor had to stick his entire arm in me and detach the placenta with his hand, scraping it away from my uterus with his fingernails." Wow. A tip of the maternal cap to you, Kim.

When you're born into a celebrity family, actually seeing other members of it is, well, a luxury. According to E! News, grandma Kris Jenner and Aunties Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian were at the hospital in Los Angeles for the birth of the sainted child, but Aunt Kendall and Kylie Jenner were missing from the scene. Kylie was reportedly in Miami for Art Basel, and Kendall hopped a flight out of town to London, presumably to do some modeling work.

But it wasn't a total snub from Kardashian's two younger sisters, who definitely put in an appearance at the "star-studded" baby shower that happened about a month before Saint's arrival. According to Us Weekly, the Kardashian-Jenner clan donned "seersucker striped pajamas alternating in periwinkle blue and pale pink colors" and looked on with famous friends "Kyle Richards, Maria Menounos, Rachel Roy, and Cara Delevingne" as Kim most likely opened a cache of baby gifts that most of us could use to refinance our houses.

The speculation around the naming of Kim and Kanye's second child was intense. Everyone, of course, joked that "South" would make sense, given the unusual directional moniker of his older sibling, but a Twitter user who goes by the handle @KILLRudy accurately predicted the divine child's name nearly six months ahead of his arrival. The now legendary tweet stated "watch kanye name his kid 'saint or some stupid s**t," so although @KILLRudy was correct, he or she was apparently not a fan. That's probably also why his or her follow-up tweet (via Just Jared), "CMON @kanyewest @KimKardashian WHERES MY CREDIT" went unanswered.

However, to truly understand the strange gravitational pull of Saint West even in the few hours after his birth, look no further than the replies to the initial name tweet, in which @KILLRudy revealed that the influx of notifications once Saint's name was announced "ruined my phone for a while." Do you understand what happened there? The mere mention of the child's name was powerful enough to shut down electronic devices.

We all remember our first major magazine cover shoot from our childhoods, right? Well, Saint will have to rely on archived versions of his, because he'll likely have no memory of appearing on the cover of Harper's Bazaar at just 2 years old. Joining Papa Kanye for the mag's "First Families of Music" feature, Saint and North posed for one of a series of special covers that also included industry giants Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Lionel Richie, and Erykah Badu with their respective progeny.

Each musical icon bequeathed a quote to their beloved offspring. Most were a bit of wisdom gained over a rich life of success — Springsteen said, "My best advice to my daughter: Keep your focus on what you really care about." Kanye West's nugget of wisdom was perhaps predictably and intentionally off-the-wall. "I hope my children never lose their confidence to society," he declared. Um... yeah! We hope so, too!

So far we've learned that Saint West is already a fashion icon, a tabloid sensation, and is possibly possessed of a preternatural disposition for disrupting entire social media platforms. What's next, he's already a spelling bee champ before he can even read? Well...

According to proud mama Kim Kardashian, Saint is "a genius." As evidence, she offered up this claim in a January 2018 tweet: "He's two years old and knows how to spell gargantuan. Had to brag for a sec!" If this is true, it's certainly impressive. However, Kardashian's followers were not so easily convinced, like @DaSlipperyLlama, who replied, "Anyone with a basic understanding of child development knows this is BS." Now, here at Nicki Swift, we prefer not to take such a hard line, but we have to say that even we're a bit skeptical of Saint's alleged spelling skills. Had she said that he already knew how to snap the perfect mirror selfie or was already experimenting with "free thought," then we'd probably be more on board.

The public has an undeniable fascination with famous people and their seemingly charmed lives, and in Saint West's case, the mystique about him began before he was even born.

According to Us Weekly, folks even speculated whether Kim Kardashian's second pregnancy was legit, accusing her of "secretly using a surrogate and planning to wear a prosthetic belly to fake her pregnancy" with Saint. Terrible, right? Well, Kardashian (aka Pregnant KiKi, as she dubbed herself,) wasn't having any of it. In an epic Twitter rant, she went off: "I'm gonna do live video streaming so every time someone talks s**t I can go blast the f**k outta them." In a calmer moment, Kardashian also promised fans that if she had used a surrogate, she would tell them.

Of course, none of this public ribbing could keep Kardashian from shutting down the rumors once and for all in the most Kardashian possible way: with a nude selfie on Instagram. She posted the sans-clothes snap with Saint clearly along for the ride in mommy's growing tummy and wrote, in part: "No matter what rumors or comments you throw my way this time they truly don't affect me!"

Parents of a small children know the uncanny power of the Elf on the Shelf — the tiny North Pole envoy who stands sentinel in different spots in the house, silently watching (and supposedly reporting back to Santa) all of the good or bad little boys' and girls' behavior. It's an almost unparalleled Christmastime training tool, and one that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West also embraced. Until tragedy struck.

You see, the Elf on the Shelf has one rule: Do not touch it, "or else they will lose their magic, and in some cases, die," according to People. Festive, huh? Anyway, Saint West either didn't get the memo or couldn't resist the temptation when he violated this rule in December 2018. But the elf wasn't the only one watching. Big sis North apparently observed her rule-breaking brother and took matters into her own hands by declaring the elf deceased. She even created a grave for it.

Kim documented the hilariously macabre happening on her Instagram Stories (per People) by sharing the above photo with the caption, "Saint touched his Elf on a Shelf so North just brought this in," along with three laughing/crying emojis. It's unclear if any Christmas miracles occurred later, bringing the late elf back to life, but with a name like Saint, anything's possible, right?