Ireland was born on May 26, 1970, in Longmont, Colorado, a small community outside Denver. She grew up a good student until her parents divorced when she was 13. At 15 she became rebellious and started taking recreational drugs, until her father sent her to live with her mother, who had remarried, in San Diego, California. In San Diego, Ireland returned to getting good grades, graduated high school, and started college, majoring in broadcast journalism. While going to high school and college, Ireland worked part-time ordering videos for a chain of video stores, which she credits for learning a lot about pornographic films.