🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.

The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, 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 perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees