You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Jessie is fast-thinking, irreverent and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘How about a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d call on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my backside out. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in a musical (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit 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 throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
