You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘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, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. 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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. 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 couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
