🔗 Share this article

You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jess Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.

We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Personal Battles and News

Cornish was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.

“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”

She reminisces to her youth, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees