You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
