Kim Kardashian Turns Down Baby Photo Cash: Is She Done Selling Her Soul?

According to TMZ, a foreign magazine has offered the couple a whopping $3 million for the first photos of their baby.

Surprisingly, the pair (dubbed Kimye) has tuned the mag down. So is the decision a gesture of integrity or is the couple simply waiting for a better offer?

Baby photos have become an increasingly high-ticket item for celebrity parents and the tabloid magazines who love them. Within the last ten years, a number of stars have been paid monumental sums for the first public photos of their offspring.

In July 2008, TMZ reported that Jessica Alba was paid $1.5 million by OK magazine for the first photos of her daughter Honor. PEOPLE magazine shelled out the same amount for pics of Christina Aguilera’s son Max that same year.

In 2009, OK  paid $3 million for photos of Mathew McCaughey and Camilla Alvarez holding their newborn son Levi.  

One of the largest deals occurred in 2008, when PEOPLE paid $6 million for pics of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Antony’s twins Max and Emme. The Los Angeles Times questioned whether the deal was “Tacky or Savvy?” It also led Advertising Age to publish the story “How Much for That Baby on the Cover?,” which noted that roughly half of the cover stories featuring exclusive baby photos flew off newsstands.   

The biggest celeb baby photo deal to date remains the $14 million that PEOPLE reportedly paid for the first photos of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s twins Max and Vivienne.

In a 2011 interview with NPR, Pitt explained why the couple decided to sell the photos.

“I know some of these guys who are in that 'stalkerazzi' world, and you really have to separate them from the paparazzi in our industry," Pitt said. “That's another breed. They have their heroes who got the big, scandalous shot, which just promotes more of that. It's a very strange thing to be selling photos of something that's very intimate and personal. And those of which you want to protect.

“But we knew there was a bounty on our head ... and we know the lengths they (the paparazzi) go to get that shot,” Pitt continued. “So we figured, 'Let's cut it off in the beginning,' and instead of that money going to people I do not respect, we would make some good out of it.”

According to EntertainmentWise, the revenue generated from the photos was donated to charity.

Still, some couples have decided against selling photos of their newborn babies to the press.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes showed their daughter Suri to the world via a Vanity Fair photo spread in 2005. There are no reports indicating that the couple was paid to share the coveted pics with the mag. Though it’s unclear why TomKat decided not to cash in on the photos, PEOPLE reported that various tabloids purportedly could not meet the couple’s asking price.

In 2008, a rep for Nicole Kidman told the Sydney Morning Herald that despite numerous offers, the actress would not sell photos of her daughter Sunday.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé would no doubt have made millions off of the first photos of Blu Ivy Carter, but the couple chose not to sell the initial snapshots of their daughter. The superstar couple instead posted the first photos of their daughter via the Tumblr page HelloBluIvyCarter. Perhaps they felt they didn’t need more than their combined worth of $775 million.

"We welcome you to share in our joy,” read the caption. “Thank you for respecting our privacy during this this beautiful time in our lives. The Carter Family."

In 2011, Mariah Carey and Nick Canon appeared in an interview with ABC News an introduced the world to their twins Moroccan and Monroe. When it came to photos, the couple decided to share the photos with fans instead of the tabloids by posting them on their official website.  

Other celebrity power couples, like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner and Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady, have also forgone selling photos of their children.

Kardashain has long been accused of exploiting her personal life for financial gain. In 2011, the star famously earned millions off of her highly publicized wedding to Kris Humphries.

According to the New York Post, the reality sensation earned a staggering $17.9 million from the nuptials, which famously lasted a laughable 72 days. This includes the $2.5 million she made from selling her wedding photos to PEOPLE and the $15 the Kardashain family made from the two hour E! Special that chronicled the wedding.

Since the divorce has yet to be finalized, Kardashian is still married to the Nets player.

Should the “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star chose not to make the birth of her first child into a cover story, she could earn a newfound degree of respect.