Asia Carrera was born in New York to a German mother and Japanese father. When she was seventeen years-old she ran away from home, complaining of her parent's constant pressure on her to excel.

Asia Carrera had a difficult childhood as a runaway girl. In her official site she explains that sometimes she traded sex for lodging and food while she was a runaway.

During the 1990s she started a career as a bar tender. Then one night she made money as a stripper and decided to pursue a career as an erotic dancer. In 1993 she put together a demo porn tape and enterred the adult porn industry. A decade later in 2003 she announced her retirement.

In the 1990s she had a contract with Vivid Video. She released many erotic titles under this label.

In 1995 she married Bud Lee whom she divorced in 2003. Later that year on December 19th she married a nutritionist Don Lemmon.

She moved with her husband to St. George Utah where she gave birth to her first daughter, Catalina, on March 4, 2005. Before she could deliver her second baby her husband was killed in a car accident in Vegas on June 10, 2006. Carrera explains about her move to Utah by saying "I deliberately moved to St. George with my husband so we could raise our kids in a conservative atmosphere, in a low-crime, family-friendly state. I do appreciate that the laws are there, and will make it harder for my kids to get into trouble when they get older."

After her husband died this retired ex- pornstar worried about her livelihood and solicited donations on her website. A short time later she found that she'd forgotten about her husband's insurance policy. The insurance company paid on her husband's policy which ended Asia Carrera's financial worries.