You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come 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’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet 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 big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
