You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like 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, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! 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.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
