You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
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 professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
