You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit 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 voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
