You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. 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 log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined 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 ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
