You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my 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 she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to 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. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
