Newman was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, to a Jewish family. to parents Marsha Jo and Raphael Newman. She has one sister, Beth Nicole, a global public relations director at J Brand. Newman started performing at age eleven in the debut of Israel Horovitz's play "A Rosen by Any Other Name". She worked consistently around Detroit, acting in many of the regional theaters. Newman received her elementary education at the Jewish Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit, where she starred as Ado Annie Carnes in an eighth-grade play of "Oklahoma!".