Lee Ann Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea and she emigrated with her family to Downers Grove, Illinois, near Chicago in 1971, where she spent most of her childhood with her three younger sisters, her mother, and her father, who is a doctor. Her youngest sister Beverly Kim is a celebrated chef who made it to the final four of the 2011 season of "Top Chef". Kim majored in broadcast journalism with a minor in Spanish at the University of Maryland. She married Louis Song, the CEO of a staffing company, in 1997.