You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
