Leah Dizon

Early life and career

Leah Donna Dizon came into the world on September 24, 1986, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her mother has French ancestry, her father Filipino ancestry, and both parents dealt cards at casinos. She grew up as the fourth of six kids, with two older brothers, one older sister, and two younger brothers. Dizon has mentioned that she got into rock and R&B music and started dance training at twelve, and that her mother kept a tight rein on her spending.

At fourteen, she took a job at a clothing store, saved up, and used that money to take a solo trip to Japan. For her first two years of high school, she attended the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts, then finished up at Eldorado High School in 2004, where she got involved in theater. When she turned eighteen, she moved to Los Angeles and spent a year in college studying film. Out in LA, she worked as a promotional model at car shows, and pictures of her ended up online.

Within a year, those photos reportedly racked up two million Google hits, mostly from viewers in China and Japan, who were drawn to her distinctive appearance. Japanese fans who saw her images urged her to come work in their country, so she sent demo tapes and dance clips to Victor Entertainment, and an agent there offered her a recording contract.

In March 2006, she relocated to Tokyo, taking Japanese lessons and voice training. Her first photobook, Petite Amie—French for "girlfriend"—came out in October 2006 and became the third best-selling photobook of both 2006 and 2007. After that, she appeared in several magazine pictorials.