You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July 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 inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“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, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
