You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast 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 release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘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 terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
