You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
