You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, 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 hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
