You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful 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. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio the group while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
