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 newish partner, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while still secretly coping with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and large glasses. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied high points for me; something severe or obscure has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career featuring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
