You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already starting her career performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group 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 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
