You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought 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 found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “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 throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
