You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
