You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) 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. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at 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 collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
