You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
