You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
