🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The musician, birth name Jess Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

Our interview takes place at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the fans.”

Personal Battles and News

She was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees