You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks 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 blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees