She was born and raised in Clearwater, Florida, part of the Tampa Bay region. She is of Italian-American and Spanish-American ancestry. Kaci's mother Donna remarried after a previous divorce to Kaci's step father Chuck Stanmore. Unfortunately the two split up in 2005. Battaglia began singing when she was three years old and soon began attending various performance camps around Florida. She is an only child. At age 11, Kaci independently released "A Thousand Stars," an album that was produced by her mother, Donna. A portion of the proceeds from "A Thousand Stars," went to help a housing project for the less fortunate. Kaci began looking for a recording contract when she was eleven years old, due to the success of her independent album. She caught the eye of legendary record producer Joel Diamond after Kaci's mom called and asked Diamond to audition her daughter. Joel knew immediately even at 11 years old, Kaci was something special and put up his own money to record her. In the United Kingdom KACI's debut single "Paradise" soared to certified gold and remained in the top 40 for 11 weeks! "Paradise" music video was a top-five requested video on MTV, and The Box. Following this release, she reached number 10 on the UK singles charts with her cover of the Partridge Family's hit. "I Think I Love You" The video for this was in the top-ten most requested for MTV, SmashHits TV, The Box (Europe), and #2 most requested on YTV-Hits in Canada, and top-five on Nickelodeon in the USA! In the U.S. Paradise won several Nick Video Picks of the Day, besting records by J.Lo and Li'l Bow Wow and top-five most requested on the Disney Channel. In 2001 KACI was nominated for The Disney Channel Kids Award as "New Chart Shocker" and was awarded "Most Glamorous Newcomer" on the SmashHits Tour in Europe. Since then, she has been making crowd pleasing appearances at the 2001 Pre-game SuperBowl show, The Hollywood Reporter's Fifth Annual Young Star Awards, Seventeen Magazine's Teen Choice Awards, and Nickelodeon's "Slimetime Live (which Kaci co-hosted & performed 3 times), and performed the National Anthem at ESPN's 2002 Outback Bowl. KACI will be kicking off 2003 on Jan.1 by performing the National Anthem at this years Citrus Bowl in Orlando in addition to the half-time show. Kaci is not only a singer/songwriter but she is also a musician and producer. "I play the guitar - I just bought a 2002 limited edition Takamine - it's my baby! I think playing an instrument is important and is an asset when writing songs! As for producing...I love it and had the privledge to co-produce "Beggin Me" with Aaron Sain. It was great, I love the entire creative process to making music".