You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she 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 tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. 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 fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
