You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
