You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
