You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows 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 beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
