You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record 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 twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
