You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” 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 sporting a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, bold and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ 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 lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then 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 fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and 17-year-old Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
