You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We meet 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 biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while enrolled in the performing arts school. “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 throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
