🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.

The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”

The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

A History of Health Challenges

The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees