‘It has taught me to embrace life more’: Jessie J on cancer, comebacks and cracking China

You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.

The artist, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.

She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.

We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Medical Challenges and Discovery

She was planning an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.

“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”

I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself

She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time 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 surgery. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”

Previous Struggles

She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”

She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”

Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees