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 current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought 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 hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a 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 lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
