You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
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’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ 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 she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring 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 medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “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 teenage Jess has joined the female band the group while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
