You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. 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 fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
