You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. 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 jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
