You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was planning an appearance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains 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 a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
