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 recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘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, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
