You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer 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 sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ 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 okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. 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 long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
