You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition 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 drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
