You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release 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 ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm 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 weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results 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.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
