You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically 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.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
