Was born on February 25, 1976, in Los Angeles, California the youngest daughter of media mogul Quincy Jones and his former wife, actress Peggy Lipton. Her father is an African-American and her mother is Jewish, descended from immigrants from Ireland and Russia. Jones attended Hebrew school and made the National Honor Society.
In his autobiography, Jones' father recalled how he would often find his five-year-old daughter under the covers after bedtime with a flashlight reading five books at a time. Around the same age, Jones was already playing classical concerts and winning awards. Her mother told Entertainment Tonight that Jones is "also a fabulous singer and songwriter, so she has inherited it (from Quincy), there's no question about it. Her dad's teaching her how to orchestrate and arrange too."
When Jones was 14 years old, her parents divorced, and she subsequently lived with her mother before beginning college at Harvard University. She garnered attention with an open letter in response to scathing remarks made by Tupac Shakur about her parents' interracial marriage. She later befriended Shakur, who was engaged to her sister Kidada Jones before he was killed. While attending Harvard, Jones initially was interested in becoming a lawyer, but lost interest as a result of the O.J. Simpson murder case. Instead, she became involved in theater. She studied religion and philosophy at Harvard and graduated in 1997.
Though raised Jewish, Jones began practicing Hinduism in her early teens after her mother took her to an Ashram in India.[4] Today, however, she practices Judaism and told a reporter, "In this day and age, you can choose how you practice and what is your relationship with God. I feel pretty strongly about my connection, definitely through the Jewish traditions and the things that I learned dating the guy that I dated. My boyfriends tend to be Jewish and also be practicing."
Jones has dated actors Tobey Maguire, Seth Meyers and John Krasinski. She was also engaged to DJ Mark Ronson.
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