You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
