You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
