You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring 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 rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
