You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up 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 facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast 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 dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the trio the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
