You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me 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 believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
