Lizzie grew up in Lake Placid, a small town in New York State. Her father is Robert Grant, a known businessman and also a singer, and her mother, Patricia Hill, was a teacher. She has two younger siblings, Caroline “Chuck” Grant, a photographer, and Charlie Grant.  

 During her adolescence, Elizabeth struggled with alcoholism when she was around 14 and 15 years old and was sent to a boarding school called Kent School to overcome her problems and finally became sober at 18 before starting college. These experiences deeply marked her vision of the world and would later influence her lyrics. 

Lizzie then studied philosophy with a focus on metaphysics at Fordham University in New York. Around this time, she recorded an album named “May Jailer Sirens” that later leaked online. In 2007, shortly after graduating, she released her first EP “Kill Kill” under the name as Lizzie Grant . These early works show her experimenting with sound and image long before Born to Die made her famous in 2012.