Shay Mitchell was born Shannon Mitchell in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to a Filipino mother and a father of Irish and Scottish descent. Even as a young child, she was interested in the performing arts, declaring to her parents that she would pursue such a career. Shay began dance lessons at the age of five, and she and several of her classmates toured the city to compete with a variety of other dance schools. At the age of 10, Shay's family moved west to Vancouver, British Columbia. Within a year of their arrival, an international modeling agency held an open casting call for teen and pre-teen girls who were vying for representation. Shay was one of the girls selected. By her late teens, Shay had successfully modeled for a variety of companies in cities as varied as Bangkok, Hong Kong and Barcelona. Wanting to focus on her true passion, Mitchell returned to Toronto and began to study acting with great focus and determination. When Shay was 21 years old She got one of the main roles in the popular series Pretty little liars, that premiere June 8 2010. When she got that role she moved to Los Angeles, and today 7 years later she still does what she loves, and she is also very active with social media, and has her own YouTube channel that is getting more and more popular.

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Trivia

Her father is of Irish and Scottish descent. Her mother is Filipino, from Pampanga, and also has some Spanish ancestry.
Favorite TV shows: Orange Is the New Black (2013), Entourage (2004), Californication (2007) and The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986).
Favorite movies: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), The Little Mermaid (1989).
In 2011 she made her debut on "The 2011 AfterEllen's Hot 100 List", coming in at #7.
Refers to her fans as "Mitchies".
Has a younger brother named Sean, a drummer in the indie band Redrick Sultan.
First cousin of Lea Salonga, singer and Tony Award-winning theater actress known for originating the lead role of Kim in the musical "Miss Saigon".
Got the nickname Shay because she is a big fan of Jennifer Lopez--aka "J. Lo"--and her friends used to call her "Shay Lo".
Lived in Bangkok, Thailand, for almost a year.
She appeared in Logan Paul's music video "Help Me Help You" alongside the band Why Don't We.
She was born to Precious and Mark Mitchell and raised alongside a younger brother named Sean. She was previously romantically tied to Carlos Pena.
In 2010, she appeared in a Disney XD series called Aaron Stone.

[on modeling] I did it from an early age. I started when I was like 15 and it allowed me to travel around the world. I got to go to some really cool jobs and live in different places. After I finished high school I went to Hong Kong and Thailand and spent some time there. Just to get that whole experience of being out of the bubble that I was in from high school in Vancouver, to be able to travel around and be on your own was an amazing experience. It really allowed me to see a lot of the world that I might not have seen that soon.
The craziest thing I've done getting over love is skydiving. I had a really upsetting breakup. When I broke up with my boyfriend I needed to like do something different and so I actually went skydiving to turn over a new page. I don't know how I did that, but I did feel really good after doing it.I wanted to like do something I've never done before on my own and I went sky diving. That's kind of something that I did to get over love. It really made me feel a lot more confident that I could handle something that I was so scared to do on my own. Up until that point I had been in a relationship for a while. To be able to do something that is your ultimate fear, which for me was heights, and to be able to do it alone without that significant other beside you, was an amazing feeling. I'm really happy that I did it. Yeah, it did help.