You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits 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 girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
