You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful 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 considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
