🔗 Share this article

You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy 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 diagnosed with breast cancer.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.

She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

Cornish was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.

“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”

The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”

Past Medical Issues

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”

She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”

Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees