You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. 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. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected 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 lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
