You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“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, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
