You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
