You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
