You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet 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.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly 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
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old 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 planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
