You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees