You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
