You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
