Born as Mabinty Bangura[1] on January 6, 1995,[2][3] into a Muslim family in Kenema, Sierra Leone,[4][5] she grew up as an orphan after her uncle brought her to an orphanage during the civil war.

Her adoptive parents were told that her father was shot and killed by the Revolutionary United Front when she was three years old and that her mother starved to death soon after.

[4] Frequently malnourished, mistreated, and derided as a "devil's child" because of vitiligo,[6][7] a skin condition causing depigmentation, she fled to a refugee camp after her orphanage was bombed.

[4] In 1999, at the age of four,[8] she and another girl, also named Mabinty, were adopted by Elaine and Charles DePrince, a couple from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and taken to the United States.

[11] Inspired by a magazine cover of a ballerina she found outside the orphanage gates and kept while in Sierra Leone, DePrince trained as a ballet dancer in the U.S., performing at the Youth America Grand Prix among other competitions.

[8] DePrince was one of the stars of the 2011 documentary film First Position, which follows six young dancers vying for a place in an elite ballet company or school at the Youth America Grand Prix.

[4][19][20] Her professional debut performance was in the role of Gulnare in Mzansi Productions and the South African Ballet Theatre's premiere of Le Corsaire on July 19, 2012.

[26] In 2015, MGM acquired the film rights to DePrince's book Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina.

[29][30][31][32] In 2019, DePrince produced a gala for War Child Holland, which raised more than half a million dollars for children and youth affected by armed conflict.

[citation needed] She wore a hamsa, a symbol that is significant to both Jews and Muslims,[3] for protection while traveling to the Dome of the Rock and the Dead Sea.

[10] In a statement, her family requested that people donate to War Child, an organization DePrince supported, in lieu of sending flowers.