You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, was released in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time dealing with breast cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great 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 scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her chest, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending 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 the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
