You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
