You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, 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 diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
