Zoë Kravitz

Kravitz was born in Venice, Los Angeles at the home of her parents, musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet. Both her parents are of half African-American and half-Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Her paternal grandmother, actress Roxie Roker (a first cousin once removed of television weather forecaster Al Roker), and her maternal grandfather, Allen Bonet, were African American, with some of her grandmother's family being from The Bahamas. Her paternal grandfather, NBC television news producer Sy Kravitz, and maternal grandmother, Arlene Litman, were both Ashkenazi Jews. Kravitz's paternal grandfather's family emigrated from Russia. Kravitz identifies as a secular Jew. The song "Flowers for Zoë", included on her father's second album Mama Said, was written as a tribute to the two-year-old Zoë.

Kravitz's parents married in 1987 and divorced six years later, in 1993, when Zoë was five years old. She lived with her mother in Topanga Canyon and then moved to Miami at age 11 to live with her father, spending summers with her mother. Kravitz has two half-siblings from her mother's second marriage to actor Jason Momoa. Her godfather is movie producer Bruce Cohen, and her godmothers are actresses Marisa Tomei and Cree Summer.

Kravitz attended Miami Country Day School and Rudolf Steiner School in Manhattan graduating in 2007. Kravitz began studying that year at the acting conservatory under Scott McCrea at the State University of New York at Purchase where her peers included Micah Stock and Jason Ralph. She left college after a year and moved to Brooklyn, New York to work in films. She struggled with anorexia and bulimia throughout high school, until around age 24.