You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July 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 interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. 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 hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group the group while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
