You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen 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 dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
