You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the trio the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
