You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
