You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. The illness. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, 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 Cornish had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And the doctor messaged 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 good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
