You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, Living My Best Life, was released in May and she 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 received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
