You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love 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 known for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, 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 the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” 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.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
