You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, her latest release, was supposed to be an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, failed relationships, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is sporting a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture motorcycle style meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after 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 persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but then I just marched with a gown on and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The follow-up procedure is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (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 dizziness and palpitations. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
