You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
