You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, 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 flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
