You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, her song 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 dealing with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
