Sehnaoui was born in Beirut on November 3, 1972 to Nabil Sehnaoui and May Chehab Sehnaoui, the great-granddaughter of Emir Bashir Shihab II, who ruled Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. He grew up in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and attended the Collège Notre-Dame de Jamhour, then moved on to the United States where he graduated from the University of Southern California.[6]