You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) 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 follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut starring in the West End in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
