Virginia Gardner was born Virginia Elizabeth Gardner on April 18, 1995, in Sacramento, California. She attended Sacramento Country Day School until eighth grade. In 2011, she joined online schooling when she moved to Los Angeles and chose to take the California High School Proficiency Exam. She attempted the test in October 2011 and passed the exam. Virginia lived with her mother during her initial phase but once she started getting acting opportunities, she moved into her own apartment and began to live independently. Gardner first made her acting debut on the Disney Channel series Lab Rats (2012). She then took a year off from acting to pursue her modeling career. As she got many opportunities in modeling she was going to stop acting. However, she heard about the audition of Glee (2009) and dropped the idea of leaving acting. As a matter a fact she was selected for the role of Katie Fitzgerald/Marissa and appeared for two episodes in the series.