You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
