You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her breasts, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
