You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. 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 eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “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 bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring 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 medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
