You couldn’t make it up, 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 mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went 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. I’ve got an achy arm 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 bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
