You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have 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 IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
