You can’t imagine it, Jessie J remarks. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with characteristic openness. The first single, No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly dealing with the disease. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album 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 expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, 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 fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. 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 difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to health crises. They have often coincided with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Wow, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
