You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, real name Jess Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, 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 her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, 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 the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. 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 day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. 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 perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
