You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, losing a baby, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, 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 was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
