You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, 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 next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
