You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
