You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s 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 grins. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning 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 heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
