You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, 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 enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready 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 appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought 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 viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
