Nashef was born in Sidon, Lebanon to Franco and Salima Nashef. Her father Franco is from Maghdouché, where her mother Salima is from Deir Mimas; both small Christian villages in the south of Lebanon. In 1978, her family fled the Lebanese Civil War and immigrated to the United States where they settled in Lansing, Michigan where her father worked as a skilled tradesmen at General Motors.[4]