You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and the artist was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an appearance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about 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 contact on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from releasing the album after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but now I just strolled down with a gown on and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Luckily it was detected early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, 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 affected my well-being.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning performing in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue WPW, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
