You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. 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 flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring 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 medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
