You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring 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 heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
