You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
