You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ 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 hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside 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 surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
