You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band the group while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
