You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
