She is the only child of Teresa Augello, who was a paralegal and part-time actress, and one of three children of Craig Cook, who was a flight attendant. Keys's father is African American and her mother is of Italian, Irish, and Scottish descent her mother's paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sciacca in Sicily and Lamezia Terme, in Calabria. Named after her Puerto Rican godmother, Keys has said that she was comfortable with her multiracial heritage because she felt she was able to 'relate to different cultures'. Keys's father left when she was two and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen.
Keys said her parents never had a relationship, and her father was not in her life. Although she did not like to speak about her father in order to not feed stereotypes, Keys remarked in 2001: 'I'm not in contact with him. But it helped show me what a strong woman my mother was, and made me want to be strong like her.
