Minka Kelly

Kelly was born in Los Angeles. She is the only child of Maureen Dumont Kelly and former Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay. She has French, Irish, and Dutch-Indonesian ancestry. She was raised primarily by her mother and her mother's on-and-off boyfriend David Gonzalez. Her mother worked various jobs, including as a stripper and bartender, and often struggled to make ends meet throughout Kelly's childhood. At one point, they lived in a storage shed at an apartment complex after losing their apartment unit. To earn extra money, her mother tried to smuggle drugs across the Mexico–United States border, but was caught and jailed for a period of time. While her mother was incarcerated, Kelly was sent to live in the homes of various friends and acquaintances of her mother. In one home, Kelly was physically abused. Before Kelly began junior high school, she and her mother relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico to be near her father figure, David Gonzalez's, extended family. When she was 16 her mother and Gonzalez fled New Mexico in an attempt to escape drug charges. Kelly moved in with a boyfriend who was five years her senior, and had an abortion at 17 when she became pregnant with his child. She attended two high schools, before graduating from Valley High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After graduation, Kelly reconnected with her biological father and moved back to Los Angeles. Kelly's mother Maureen died in 2008, at age 51, from colon cancer.