Since both parents worked most days of the week, Jean-Pierre was often responsible for caring for her younger siblings. Her mother worked as a home health aide and was active in her Pentecostal church, while her father was a taxi driver. She has two younger siblings, alongside whom she was raised in the Queens Village neighborhood of New York City from the age of five. Jean-Pierre was born on August 13, 1977, in Fort-de-France, Martinique, the daughter of Haitian parents.
