You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
