You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. When performing I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an appearance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ 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 Monday. By then Cornish had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has entered the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
