You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career performing in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio the group while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
