You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group 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 recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
