Gia Carangi was born on January 29, 1960 in Philadelphia. She was born to Joe and Kathleen Carangi and had two older brothers Joe and Michael. Growing up she received little attention from her mom and her parents always argued. Her parents eventually split up and in 1971 Gia’s mom left them in their father's care. Joe was left to take care of the kids and run the family sandwhich shop but that left him with little time to take care of the kids. This left Gia with a lot more unobserved time on her hands. She was a wild girl, partying all night, drinking, and doing drugs.

At 13, Carangi found she could get the attention she lacked from her mother through other girls her age. She would send them flowers to ensure they developed a crush on her. In high school, Gia and her friends worshipped David Bowie. They liked dressing in his irregular fashion and looked up to him freely being bisexual. Before becoming a model Carangi could be found hanging out with her friends in gay bars and clubs. She was known to be bisexual but she had never taken it any further.

She began partying in places like Mudd Club and Studio 54, which is where she was noticed by Maurice Tannerbaum, a photographer. Gia’s mother was thrilled at the idea of her daughter becoming a model but her Father wasn’t so thrilled. Tannerbaum took her to the Wilhemina Cooper agency in New York where her whole modeling career would start. At age 17 she had moved to New York and quickly became known as the prettiest face in the modeling business.

Early in her career a photographer had her standing in front of a chain link fence, completely nude but done up with body paint. While the photographer was taking pictures Gia managed to land in the water; which, created the perfect shot of her. At the time, she became very interested in her make up artist, Sandy Linter. Gia pursued her but nothing ever came of it. While working with her photographers (Francesco Scavullo, Richard Avedon and Patrick Demarchelier) she became extremely famous and had gotten several cover shots on the front pages of Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

In 1980, Wilhelmina Cooper, passed away of lung caner; which, threw Gia into a downward spiral as this was her mentor. She began heavily doing drugs and drinking. Her career almost came to a halt because she stopped going to photo shoots and it was thought she wasn’t capable of doing her job anymore. She began having “hissy fits” which was thought to be related to the drugs. Her drug abuse worsened and her track marks were visible in a photograph on the cover of Vouge.

Gia went into rehab but, for unknown reasons, she could not successfully complete it. Just after leaving rehab she heard the news that Chris von Wangenheim died in a car accident. Any attempts of her staying clean soon vanished as sunk further down into her addiction. She spent several hours locked in a bathroom shooting heroin which ended her modeling career. As a gift, photographer Scavullo, gave her one last photo shoot for the cover of Cosmopolitan. This was her last photo shoot ever.

After this, at her mother's wish, she went back into rehab for 6 months and successfully completing the rehab program. She got a job at the mall and started taking classes at a community college. All seemed to be going well for her but after three months she had disappeared from her home. It was found out later that she was in Atlantic City, sleeping with men for money, and using drugs. She began to get ill from pneumonia and her mother came to check her into the hospital. They also found out, upon checking her in, she had AIDS. In 1986, she passed away from the AIDS and had a small funeral which not too many people attented.