You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus 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 join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
