Peter Gene Hernandez was born on October 8, 1985, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was raised in the Waikiki neighborhood of Honolulu. He is the son of Peter Hernandez and Bernadette "Bernie" San Pedro Bayot (died June 1, 2013). His father is of half Puerto Rican and half Jewish (from Hungary and Ukraine) ancestry and is originally from Brooklyn, New York. Mars' mother immigrated to Hawaii from the Philippines as a child and was a Filipino.