You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ 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 goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
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 walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
