You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment preparing for her new album launch in eight years, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later next release, the upbeat Living My Best Life, was released in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. A month later she disclosed her condition, and in early July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Jessie is sharp-witted, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was planning an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then the singer had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal 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 subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to be complacent. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
