You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for ten years, feeling invincible. Then in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly coping with the disease. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I often tease the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after a long hiatus and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I felt, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside 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 life goes, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career starring in the West End in the production (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band the group while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
