You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, 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. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I 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 hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right 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 remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in the production (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 rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
