Early Life
Vanity was born Denise Matthews in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Her mother is of Polish and Jewish descent and was born in Germany while her father was African American, Hawaiian and Native American. Her sister is Canadian model Patricia Matthews. She grew up up in Niagara Falls and came from what she called a "broken home". Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother suffered from alcoholism and depression. Matthews' father was abusive towards her and her sisters. As a child, along with her sisters and step siblings, she regularly moved back and forth between her father and stepmother, mother, and grandparents.
Read more about this topic: Vanity (performer)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)