Hayes was born Chanelle Jade Sinclair in 1987 in Styal, Cheshire, England. Her mother, Andrea Sinclair, a 32-year-old prostitute, was murdered by client Keith Pollard, on 5 April 1988, when Hayes, born in Wythenshawe hospital, was not quite five months old.[1][2] Hayes was then put up for adoption and was raised in, Wakefield, West Yorkshire by Christine and Harry Hayes. At age 15, she sought information about her birth family from social workers, and was reunited with her grandmother and her sisters in Sheffield.