You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then 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 surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
