You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my 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 describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘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, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
