You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, 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 fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
