You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; 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, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
