🔗 Share this article

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.

Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I often tease the fans.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a year.”

Hey, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees