You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while studying at the academy. “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 collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
