You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
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 reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! 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 perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
