You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious 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 simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘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 informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica 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 brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
