You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to 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 assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
