Born in Brooklyn, NY, to a writer/accountant father, Stan Victor, and case worker mother, Barbara Victor (both from southern Nigeria), she is the middle child of three girls. Growing up between Brooklyn and Long Island, she started dancing and playing piano at 6. She was entered into a pageant by an aunt at age 13 and won Miss New York Junior Teen. Though discovered by an agent at a fashion show commitment, and pushed towards a career in modeling, she was drawn to acting. Her academic achievements led her to the Ivy League, and she was enrolled in the undergrad program of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied entrepreneurial management and marketing. While in college, she performed plays with friends in parks around Philadelphia, and studied acting privately. After school, she returned to New York City where she studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and quickly began working both on Broadway and on various television shows, including NYC classics Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU.