Carré Otis was born in San Francisco, and raised in Marin County, California, along with her older sister Chrisse and her younger brother Jordan.
Over the next several years, she appeared on covers in the American and foreign editions of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Allure, Mirabella, and Marie Claire.
Otis is the model on the poster above the character Rusty Griswald's bed in the 1989 film National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Otis has walked the runway for Max Mara, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Ermanno Scervino, Todd Oldham and Donna Karan.
As part of her recovery, she experienced a weight gain that offered her the opportunity to work as a plus-size model, most notably as the face for Marina Rinaldi and editorials for Mode Magazine; in 2003, Otis became a spokesperson for National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.
She details abuses she suffered, including being raped "countless" times as a young girl by Gérald Marie,[16] the head of Elite Model Management's Paris office.