De Pablo was born in Santiago, Chile, to an upper-class Roman Catholic family. She has two younger sisters, one named Andrea. In grade 5, she found many people could not properly pronounce her first name of "Maria José" so she asked them to call her Coté (which is a common nickname for María José in Chile). When de Pablo was ten, her mother, María Olga Fernández, received a job in Miami, Florida, at a Spanish-speaking television network. There, de Pablo attended Arvida Middle School and New World School of the Arts where she studied musical theater. She then attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she studied music and theater and appeared in several plays. They include: And The World Goes 'Round, The House of Bernarda Alba, Indiscretions, The Fantasticks, and A Little Night Music. Cote De Pablo graduated in 2000.
