You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career 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 heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
