You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, 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 obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
