Jane was a military brat who grew up on various military bases in the Midwestern United States. She did extensive dance training and was a varsity Cheerleader at her high school in Rose Hill, Kansas. She graduated from Moore High School in Moore, Oklahoma in 1998.
Jane has described herself as bisexual. In 2004, she stated on the Howard Stern Show that she had a hysterectomy due to now dormant cervical cancer.
On the July 25, 2006 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, during the "Jay Walking" segment, she gave her name as "Cindy" and said that she currently worked at Hooters. An adult magazine cover featuring her as Jesse Jane was then shown onscreen. In 2005, she was featured as UnRated Magazine's Vixen, to launch the music review magazine's new edition of Vixens.
On February 28, 2007 she featured on the Danish late night show den 11. time during the show she was interviewed by seemingly three Mads Brüggers.
In 2009 Jesse appeared in the reality series The Bad Girls Club. In a 2009 CNBC documentary titled Porn: Business of Pleasure, Jesse is the focus of the final 10-minute segment, which details her career and her life outside the porn industry.
Jane was the Australian Penthouse Pet of the Month in November 2010.
In January 2011 she was named by freelance Journalist Chris Morris as one of the 12 most popular stars in porn which he published on CNBC. Morris stated that she is "for many, the face of modern porn", noting her roles in the popular porn Pirates films, and her Performer of the Year nominations by both AVN and the XBIZ Awards. And again in 2014, Jane was on Morris's list of "The Dirty Dozen: Porn's Most Popular Stars".
In 2015 interview, she announced she no longer goes by the name "Jesse Jane" but rather "Jesse". The reason was that she was in a dispute with her former employer of 12 years, Digital Playground, who owns the rights to her former stage name.
In January 2017, Jane announced that she would retire from the adult industry and that the 2017 AVN Awards would be her last.
