You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
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 …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, 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 she had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
