You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style 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. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
