You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, 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. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “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 voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
