You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album 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, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. 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 flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
