You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make 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 performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring 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 medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio 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 the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
