You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘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.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
