You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test 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.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
