You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with 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 starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
