You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about 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 call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
