You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. 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 positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
