You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe 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 film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
