You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Then in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with characteristic openness. The lead track, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while all the while dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Picture motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I basically roast the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following 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 she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now resembles a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, 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 perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her youth, already beginning performing in the stage in the production (she was chosen 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 rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
