Charles was born and raised in Mays Landing, New Jersey. She is the only child of an interracial family. Her father, Charles DeGaetano, is of Italian descent, while her mother, Suzette DeGaetano (a former a professional singer and music teacher) is of West Indian descent.
She graduated from the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in 1981 (where she was a Presidential Scholar in her senior year). She finished the pageant as the first runner-up.
She was Mission New Jersey 1983 and served as
Suzette Charles thus replaced her, serving as for the remaining seven weeks. The pageant began with issuing an apology to Williams for her forced resignation in 1984. Charles commented on the apology the day after the event, stating in an interview with Inside Edition that she was perplexed over it and suggested that it was given for the purpose of ratings.
Charles, who already had many credits in advertising and educational television, has gone on to a career as a singer, entertainer, and television personality.
She has acted on the American Broadcasting Company soap opera Loving, Columbia Broadcasting System television series Frank"s Place and performed on This Morning, a British talk show. She hosted a show on Bravo called Arts-Break.
She narrated the motion picture, Beyond The Dream, and has appeared on stage singing with Stevie Wonder, Alan King, Joel Grey, Sammy Davis Junior., Bill Cosby and Frank Sinatra. In 1993, Charles was signed to Radio Corporation of America Records and recorded with top British producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman, releasing her debut single, "Free To Love Again", in August of that year.
The single peaked at #58 on the United Kingdom Singles Chart.
Other songs she recorded with Stock and Waterman included "After You"re Gone", "Don"t Stop (All The Love You Can Give)", "Every Time We Touch", "What The Eye Don"t See" and "Just Foreign A Minute". Her producers have included Waterman and David Foster who also signed her on his 143 Label. In the late 1980s, Barry Manilow and his management company Stiletto Management represented her on Capitol Records as well.
She won a full scholarship to Temple University where she was a performing arts major. Charles competed as Mission New Jersey in the pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 17, 1983. In July 1984 the reigning Mission America, Vanessa L. Williams, was forced to resign seven weeks prior to the end of her time as Mission America (after the publication of nude photos of her in Penthouse). Williams was allowed to keep the bejeweled crown and scholarship money and is officially recognized by the Mission America Organization as "". Charles is recognized as "B". Thirty-two years later, on September 13, 2015, Williams returned to the Mission America stage when she served as head judge for Mission America 2016.
