You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom believing it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
