You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with her cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is sharp-witted, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“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, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom 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 biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but now I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because 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.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards several years, and young Jessica has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
