You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, 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 partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected 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 both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! 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 flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
