You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a gown on and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
