Tanja Melendez Lynch was born and raised in New York. She grew up in Cedarhurst, Long Island and graduated from Lawrence High School. Her taste for acting and comedy came from her vivacious childhood being the youngest of four children born to her Puerto Rican father, Jorge and her German mother, Monika. She continued on to study at the University of Massachusetts, Amerst, MA where she met her husband and pursued her Master Degree at Salem State College, Salem, MA. She has two daughters.