Tarita Virtue was born in
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on February 16, 1970. She was a premature baby (arriving two months early) and weighed 4 lbs. 4 ounces. She was born to a racially and ethnically mixed
Trinidadian mother and
Jamaican father, and was raised in
Boca Raton, Florida. According to her biography, the most common question that she is asked is "What are you?" She usually responds with the answer of "a little bit of everything." The origins of her name stems from her premature birth during
Carnival, a regional celebration in the Caribbean during the Northern Hemisphere's early spring or late winter. Since the offices during that time usually do not run at full capacity, her parents hastily came up with a name, naming her after the
Tahitian wife of
Marlon Brando,
Tarita Teriipaia, after reading a magazine article about the couple. ==Education==