You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘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, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a 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 jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
