You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery 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 lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; something severe or obscure 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 the production (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition WPW, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
