You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. 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! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks 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 highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the female band the group while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees