You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “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. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
