You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “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 car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
