Three years ago, Kylie Jenner got a tiny red tattoo just below her right hip. The delicate tattoo, which spells out the phonetic pronunciation of “sanity," was perhaps her most mysterious. However, now the 21-year-old mogul is opening up about the meaning behind the ink.
Jenner, who is currently in Turks and Caicos with her squad to celebrate the launch of her Kylie Skin body products, posted a photo today of herself against an Instagram-friendly sunset backdrop. At first, fans thought this was just another in a string of vacation posts Jenner is adding to her feed — including a photo where she's wearing neon nail polish and nothing else — but a quick look at the caption proves otherwise.
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In it, Jenner talks about growing up in the public eye and the unseen effects it's had on her mental health. The one thing that's kept her anchored? Her "sanity" tattoo. "My first tattoo was 'sanity' to remind myself everyday to keep it," Jenner wrote. "I’ve struggled with anxiety my whole young adult life and after my baby I dealt with all the internal ups and downs. I felt like I had to find myself completely again."
The revealing caption, which is admittedly out of the ordinary for Jenner, comes just a day after she took to Instagram to defend her BFF Anastasia "Stassie” Karanikolaou from a body-shaming troll, which fans suspect triggered Jenner's heartfelt post today.
In 2017, Jenner opened up to V Magazine about the ink, revealing that she got it in December 2015 from Keith "Bang Bang" McCurdy in New York. “There was a time when I got [that tattoo] that I felt a little bit like I was going insane. Or, I was going to,” she explained. “I thought about it for a while. I just like the word ‘Sanity’— just stay sane through it all. A lot of young stars who grow up in the spotlight have a really hard time. I didn’t want that to be me.” Jenner has since updated the butt tattoo with the word "before" at the front of the design, and it now reads "before sanity."
"Sanity" may be Jenner's most emotional tattoo, but it's not her only one. Although Jenner refers to her "sanity" tattoo as her first, fans caught a glimpse of another red tattoo a few months earlier on the back of her arm: a heart. A year later, she added her grandmother's name "Mary Jo" to the same arm and a lowercase letter “m” in red ink on her pinkie finger (to match former BFF Jordyn Woods). Jenner also has a cover-up tattoo on her ankle (that reportedly hides a design dedicated to her ex-boyfriend Tyga), a butterfly to match current beau Travis Scott, and matching "Stormi" tattoos with Karanikolaou. In other words, Jenner is a fan of tribute tattoos. Our only question left: Who will be next?