You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial 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 considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash 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
