Chelsea Alicia Hayes was born February 9, 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana to mother Joyce Hayes. She has three brothers - Shawn, Keegan and Kenji Hayes. For high school, Chelsea attended Marion Abramson Senior High School, where she played basketball and competed in track and field, only taking up the latter for the first time in her junior year. Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, she attended high school in multiple states during her senior year before graduating from Marion Abramson. She received MVP honors for track. After high school, Hayes attended Butler Community College for two years before transferring to Louisiana Tech, where she graduated in 2012 with a degree in nursing.