You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, 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 like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘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 beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
