You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. 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 join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery 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 feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
