You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing 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 an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your reports have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has become part of the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
