JAX ‘SWEATIN’ THE DETAILS
Belle of Jingle Ball
There will be some pretty cool ice breakers at this holiday concert.
Long Island native Jax will be playing Santa at iHeartRadio Z100’s Jingle Ball — by doling out sweaters she crafted to her fellow performers.
It’s the “American Idol” alum’s first time performing at Madison Square Garden as well as meeting some of the notable names in the Dec. 9 musical lineup.
“In efforts to try and make friends, I am really creepy, and I made a bunch of ugly sweaters with people’s names on them,” the 26-year-old TikTok sensation, whose real name is Jackie Miskanic, told The Post.
“Demi Lovato’s … it says, ‘It’s beginning to look Lovato like Christmas.’”
Jax is gifting her fellow “Jingle Ball” performers, like Lovato, with homemade sweaters. Others are on her nice list too. “I really want to meet Lizzo. She’s on the same label as me, which is cool,” Jax gushed. “Same with Jack Harlow. I really love him. Kid Laroi, ‘Laroi-dolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’”
After the show, the pop star — who has over 12 million followers on TikTok — will likely be at one of her favorite watering holes in the city, Bar Nine in Hell’s Kitchen. And she will “probably” belt out a karaokestyle version of her hit “Victoria’s Secret.” The anthem promoting body positivity, which she wrote for the girl she babysits, reached No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 list in October.
Obstacles overcome
Her path to performing at The Garden — the top of her bucket list — has not been smooth. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 18 and beat it — twice.
“Multiple doctors told me it was a cold,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘I feel this bump here,’ and they’re like, ‘Ah, swollen lymph nodes.’”
Thanks to her mom’s persistence, she went for an ultrasound, and discovered she had 18 tumors, 12 of which were cancerous.
Right after receiving the devastating diagnosis, she had to perform at her first sold-out show — at Webster Hall in the East Village. “And I was like, ‘What’s up, New York? … Things are great,’” laughed Jax, who has been cancer-free since 2017.
After two surgeries, which included having her thyroid removed, she wasn’t certain her voice would return or be the same.
“I was relearning how to sing and use the muscles in my face and neck,” she said. “When I went to go brush my teeth, I would hit my face with the toothbrush because … when they sliced that twice,” she said, pointing to a scar on her neck, “all the nerves up here kind of shifted.”
During her treatment, she relocated from East Brunswick, NJ, to Los Angeles, and began writing music.
Through the COVID quarantine, she penned songs from other people’s perspectives and posted them on TikTok.
In November 2020, her ballad “Stacy’s Mom From Stacy’s Mom’s Perspective,” an homage to Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” went viral overnight.
Jax credits her parents — both Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, natives who will be in the audience at MSG — for their unwavering support. “I’m so happy watching them, ’cause they’ve seen me go through so much,” she said.
Her father, John, is a retired FDNY firefighter out of Engine Co. 276; her mom, Jill, a retired middle school teacher from IS 234.
Jax created sweaters for her parents to wear at Jingle Ball.
“One says, ‘Look, Mom, I’m playing the Garden,’ with her face on it,” she said.
The other is playfully written in her thick Brooklyn accent, and says, “That’s my dawtuh.”