You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘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 recalls to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio 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 the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
