You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
