You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free 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 goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial 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 viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
