You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems 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 beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. 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 hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep 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 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
