You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
