You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her comeback record in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d experienced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery 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 hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already making her debut starring 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 a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards six years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
