Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Denise Milfort narrowly escaped great political upheaval with her family as a small child. Her father, now deceased, was the supervising engineer at a German owned electronic company in Haiti. Her mother, a former entrepreneur owned several car dealerships throughout the country. The family was forced to abandon all of their assets and start with zero in the United States.Her interest in acting began early, as she landed leading roles in school productions. She's credited on the highly praised Nine Inch Nails album The Fragile for song La Mer, recorded during a six year romantic relationship with the Grammy and Academy award winner Trent Reznor. She's quoted defending her decision to sing the song in Haitian Creole rather than French as support for the decision to make Haitian Creole an official language in Haiti, which prior had been French. It was a conscious decision on her part to distance herself from the elitist politics of her family's past.While living in New Orleans, she appeared on the cover of Gambit Weekly and supported herself as a model. After finishing high school in Stamford, Connecticut, she attended Eastern Connecticut State University and majored in biology, she later moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She has four sisters and a brother. In her latest work Repentance, she plays alongside academy award winning actor Forest Whitaker due out early 2013.