You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if 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. Jessie is quick, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio the group while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
