You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” 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 …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent 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. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
