You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
