You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was 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 facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. 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 rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
