Not much is known about Samantha's younger years. It is known that she came from a working class background, and she spent most of her teenage years selling Dilly bars at Dairy Queen to earn pocket money. Season 3 implies that she has at least two siblings, when she mentions that at her age, her mother "was saddled with three kids and a drunk husband". She later mentions partying at Studio 54 during its heyday, implying she moved sometime in the mid- to late-1970s from wherever she grew up to New York City. She has mentioned having had at least two abortions, one of which occurred while she was in college.