You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. 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 frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
