You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was intended as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
