🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.

We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer 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.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”

She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees