You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while living with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘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 shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
