You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later second single, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. 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 was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, wait, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
