You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
