You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands 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 bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘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 goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure 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 this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
