You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the West End in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
