Vaitiare was born Vaitiare Eugenie Hirshon in Tahiti, French Polynesia, and was later known as Vaitiare Bandera, after she married producer Peter Bandera in 1994-97. Once she graduated high school at the age of 16, she signed with a top modeling agency in Los Angeles and booked her first audition.

A year after, at the age of 17, she auditioned for the internationally singer, Julio Iglesias' Christmas Special music video, filmed in her homeland. She was offered the lead female role in the remake of The Bounty (1984), starring a young Mel Gibson, and turned it down. In her early 20's, she starred in her first comedy film in Spain, Tahiti's Girl (1990), and then decided to study acting, back in Los Angeles, with renown acting coach, Larry Moss.