You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was cast 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 tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees