🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.

“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after a long hiatus and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”

Previous Struggles

She is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”

She recalls to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the West End in the production (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”

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