Joan Jett was born in Philadelphia. She later moved to Hollywood, California, where, when still in her teens, she first gained attention as the guitarist, main songwriter and back-up singer in the pioneering all-women band The Runaways, known for pre-punk hard rock and the classic song "Cherry Bomb." Once lead singer Cherie Currie left the band, Joan assumed the duties of lead vocalist. Although the band was misconstrued in the U.S. as a novelty act, they were more popular in Japan. After the Runaways disbanded in 1979, Jett produced an album for Los Angeles punk rock band, The Germs, then embarked on a solo career. Although she approached many labels, not one would sign her due to the stigma that accompanied her former band, The Runaways, and so she and manager and co-writer Kenny Laguna created their own independent record label, Blackheart Records to release recordings by her new band distributed by Boardwalk Records, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. With the Blackhearts, she had several singles in the top ten, including the #1 "I Love Rock 'N Roll" cover, originally by The Arrows, as well as covers of Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover" and Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me". "Bad Reputation", whose accompanying video narrates the story of the rejection of Joan by major labels and the creation of her own record label, was also a hit. During this time, Jett toured relentlessly. One of the highlights of her live performance is the cover of the AC/DC song "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap". Unfortunately Boardwalk Records went under after the death of its founder Neil Bogart, and Jett and Laguna never made the money they were owed from the massive hit "I Love Rock'n Roll". After making the two classic albums on Blackheart Boardwalk, Jett and Laguna signed to MCA Records and her career took a nosedive - with two clunkers leading to her being dropped and being forced to sign to a pressing and distribution deal with a CBS records affiliate. She recorded yet another clunker, 1986's "Good Music", and her career was on the skids. Finally Jett and Laguna were told by CBS that they would lose their record deal if they didn't bring in some outside hands to help guide them through their next album, "Up Your Alley". Faced with the prospect of losing their livelihoods, they turned to hitmaking machine songwriter/producer Desmond Child, and street rock producer/songwriter Ric Browde. Both of these men brought unusual focus and drive to this record and rescued Joan's career from the gutter. Laguna and Jett thought after the success of this album that they could return to doing things on their own (and they refused to pay either her band or her producers their royalties) - but they were mistaken - and after shedding Child and Browde they didn't produce much else memorable. Their follow-up, an album of all covers, was a critical flop. To date, it has been more than 10 years since Joan Jett has released an album of new music in the U.S. She and Laguna currently host a radio program on Sirius satellite radio.

Joan Jett's first appearance on film is in the 1981 live concert film Urgh!, subtitled A Music War, performing with her band The Blackhearts. Her first acting role came in 1987, co-starring with Gena Rowlands and Michael J. Fox in the Paul Schrader film Light of Day. She has also appeared in some independent films, including Du-beat-E-O which was originally entitled We're All Crazy Now and was to have been about The Runaways. Production difficulties necessitated changes and the film was rewritten to focus around Jett and released in 1984. In 1997, Joan appeared in the independent film, Boogie Boy, directed by Craig Hamann and most recently has appeared in the Broadway production of The Rocky Horror Show in the role of "Columbia". During the 1990s, she appeared on the Ellen show, performing the title song. She also appeared on the television show Highlander and covered the theme song to The Mary Tyler Moore Show of the 1970s. Her song "Bad Reputation" was used as the theme song for the cult TV show Freaks and Geeks.