You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
