You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. 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.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “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.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
