You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
