You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s 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 beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
