You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
