At the age of four, on November 2, 1963, after the South Vietnamese coup d'état, in which both her Father Ngô Đình Nhu and Uncle Ngo Dinh Diem were assassinated, she was forced to leave her country and eventually arrived in Rome, Italy, accompanied by her two brothers. At that time her mother Madame Nhu and sister Ngo Dinh Le Thuy were in the middle of a good-will tour in the United States on behalf of the Vietnamese government.