You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
