You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells 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 contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). 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 IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
