You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. 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 good, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt 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 viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
