Just like any couple, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have experienced both highs and lows in their years-long relationship.
Kardashian and West met in the early 2000s when he was recording a song with her pal Brandy, a singer who is also the older sister to Ray J — the KKW Beauty mogul’s ex. The duo reconnected years later after her 72-day marriage to Kris Humphries ended. At the time, Kardashian visited Paris to attend West’s fashion show.
“Right before I got married to Kris Humphries, [Kanye and I] were talking and I just went a different direction. I think I had to go through that to figure out what I wanted,” she explained on the Keeping Up With the Kardashians 10th anniversary special in 2017. “After my breakup, I was feeling really low and down and he said, ‘Just come to Paris and see my fashion show.’”
The businesswoman added, “He jokes that he put on this whole fashion show just to get a date with me. So, I went there and I stayed with him, and that’s where we started dating. I swear from the moment I landed, I fell madly in love with him and I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Why didn’t I do this sooner?’ Like, this is what real life is like — love and fun and real support.”
The twosome began dating in the spring of 2012 and Us Weekly confirmed that December that Kardashian was expecting the pair’s first child, North. Four months after welcoming North, the “Gold Digger” rapper proposed to Kardashian. The couple wed in Italy in May 2014.
As their marriage progressed, the pair encountered issues when trying to grow their family. Though Kardashian gave birth to son Saint in 2015, she would welcome daughter Chicago in 2018 and son Psalm in 2019 via surrogate.
“You get your surrogate attorney, you get your surrogate broker and then the broker recommended that we use a therapist that would communicate with me first and then communicate with her and kind of be our liaison,” she explained on Laura Wasser’s “All’s Fair” podcast in February 2020. “Toward the end, we got close enough where we could communicate really without that.”
The pair continued to encounter and overcome hardships over the years, including Kardashian being held at gunpoint in her Paris hotel room in 2016. West abruptly ended his New York concert and rushed to his wife’s side upon hearing of the scary incident.
In July 2020, the Grammy winner announced his run for the U.S. presidency. During his campaign rally in South Carolina, he revealed a very personal tidbit about how he and Kardashian considered aborting their daughter North. He then proceeded to go on a Twitter rant, during which he claimed that Kardashian tried to get a “doctor to lock me up” after his behavior at the South Carolina event.
Scroll down to see Kardashian and West’s ups and downs through the years.