You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. 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 all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“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, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
