You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
