You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
