Wakeema Hollis

Hollis was born in Memphis, Tennessee., but her mother, Frances, raised Hollis and her brother in Jackson, Tennessee, near her "vast extended family." She attended Alexander Elementary School, Jackson Central-Merry Middle and High School, where her theatre teacher, Becky Fly, introduced her to a love for acting. Hollis believes, "If I had never met Ms. [Becky] Fly, my life would have been so different [...] I would never be doing what I'm doing now. She saw something in me I didn't see in myself." At age 15, Hollis was introduced to an agent through Fly, and she began book modeling jobs on weekends and during breaks from school.

After graduating From Jackson Central-Merry High School, Hollis moved to New York to pursue a modeling career. She appeared in high fashion magazines, walked runways in New York, Paris, Milan, and London, including before the British royal family, and worked with designers such as Marc Jacobs, Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, and Ralph Lauren. Hollis later attended William Esper Studio in New York, which she graduated from in 2016. In an interview with Bustle in 2019, Hollis admitted that the decision to transition from modeling to acting was a difficult one, "Modeling was the only thing I knew ... it was really scary, but it was also what I wanted. It's what I've always wanted. I couldn't not do it."