You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown 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. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
