You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. 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. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
