You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, 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 cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘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 goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group 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 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
