You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, 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 musician, actual name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
