Nguyen was born in Singapore, while her family was emigrating from Vietnam.
A few years later, they moved again to the Houston, Texas neighborhood of Alief, where they lived in rundown housing for most of Nguyen's childhood until they were admitted to a gated community run by a strict Buddhist temple.
The family left the community when Nguyen was eight.
Nguyen's career began at the age of eighteen when she was discovered at the Sharpstown Mall by a Playboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine and did a test shoot, then eventually moved to Southern California and was featured as Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the week on April 22, 2002, and soon thereafter she became the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.
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