‘It has taught me to embrace life more’: Jessie J on cancer, comebacks and conquering the Chinese market

You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.

The artist, actual name Jessica Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.

She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.

We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”

Health Struggles and Diagnosis

Cornish was planning an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.

“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”

Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness

She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just walked with a gown on and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”

The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”

A History of Health Challenges

Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”

She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”

Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees