You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica 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 recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. 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 terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has become part of 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 planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
