You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the London theater in the production (she was selected 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 vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
