Karapetyan was born on August 27, 1982 in Armenia's second largest city of Gyumri (then called Leninakan). She witnessed the 1988 Armenian earthquake that left her native city devastated. In an article written following a March 17, 2014 earthquake in Los Angeles, Karapetyan wrote: "Every time we get a shaker here in Southern California I quickly have a flashback to my childhood. I was 6-years old in 1988 when a devastating earthquake hit my hometown in Gyumri." Meanwhile, the ethnic conflict with Azerbaijan intensified as the Soviet Union was on its way to collapse. Due to these hardships her family emigrated to the United States in 1990. She grew up in Palos Verdes Estates, California.