You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
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 answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project 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 thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “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 automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
