You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts 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 automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
