You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
