You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
