You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided 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 life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
