You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band the group while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
