Born near Prostějov, Czechoslovakia to Anna Porizkova and Jiri Porizka, Porizkova was three years old when her anti-Soviet dissident parents fled Czechoslovakia to Lund, Sweden, to escape the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. She was left in the care of her grandmother. Czechoslovak authorities would not allow her parents to reclaim her, and the ensuing battle was widely publicized in the Swedish press, making Porizkova a cause célèbre.