Watts' mother, Dr. Velma Gibson Watts, was an associate dean at Wake Forest University & her father, Roland Watts, was chairman of Winston-Salem State University's Fine Arts Department. Watts attended Salem Academy in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as a teenager. She's a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, where she was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper & graduated Magna Cum Laude. In 1981, she earned a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.