You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. 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 scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat 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 several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
