You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense 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?’ It happened on March 28, 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 she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as 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 notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
