You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, 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 health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
