You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, actual 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 (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
