You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me 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 thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis 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 shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in the production (she was selected 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 lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
