You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “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 film. “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 planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
