You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with 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 intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
