You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, 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 second single, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
