You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. 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 log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “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 voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
