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Niki de Saint Phalle was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, near Paris, to Count André-Marie Fal de Saint Phalle ( 1906 – 1987 ), a French banker, and his American wife, the former Jeanne Jacqueline Harper ( 1908 – 1980 ).

She had four siblings, and a double first cousin was French novelist Thérèse de Saint Phalle ( Baroness Jehan de Drouas ).

After being wiped out financially during the Great Depression, the family moved from France to the United States in 1933, where her father worked as manager of the American branch of the Saint Phalle family's bank.

Saint Phalle enrolled at the prestigious Brearley School in New York City, but she was dismissed for painting fig leaves red on the school's statuary.

She went on to attend Oldfields School in Glencoe, Maryland where she graduated in 1947.

During her teenaged years, Saint Phalle was a fashion model ; at the age of sixteen, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine ( September 26, 1949 ), and, three years later, on the November 1952 cover of French Vogue.