You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, 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 adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
