Moore rose to prominence in 1993 after winning the Miss USA contest, and placing in the top six of that year's Miss Universe pageant. She was the second black woman to be crowned Miss USA, after Carole Gist, and she holds the distinction of being the first dark-skinned woman to win the contest. She subsequently appeared in films and television shows including Waiting To Exhale (1995), Deliver Us from Eva (2003), The Steve Harvey Show (1998) and Girlfriends (2004).
Since 2012, Moore has starred in the Bravo series The Real Housewives of Atlanta, one of the most consistently highly rated reality programmes. She was also a member of the cast of The Celebrity Apprentice in 2015, a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and part of the first The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip cast, both in 2021. Moore has produced several film projects, had a book published, and starred in her own exercise video. She is also known for her involvement in entrepreneurial ventures and is the founder of a hair care brand, Kenya Moore Hair.
Moore was born in Detroit, Michigan to teenagers Patricia Moore and Ronald Grant, and was raised by her paternal grandmother Doris Grant(1931–2017) and aunt after her mother abandoned her at three days old. The reality TV show star revealed that her mother never named her. "Since birth, my mother made the decision at age 16 to pretend she never had me. She has never spoken to me," Kenya wrote. "Even if present in the same room with other people and family, she pretends that I simply don't exist. She pretends I'm invisible," Kenya revealed on her Bravo blog. Moore graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1989. While still in high school, Moore experienced domestic violence from a much older boyfriend. In Moore's words, "He tormented me physically, mentally and once even nearly killed me by putting me into the hospital, from attacking me with a finger nail file… stabbing me with a finger nail file."
Moore attended Wayne State University, where she majored in psychology and minored in communication.

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