You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
