You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The album, her latest release, was intended as an open book, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with the disease. A month later she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Picture biker chic meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is aiming for her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I basically roast the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ 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 reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have shown aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They lead you. During crises you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to physical challenges. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut performing in the London theater in the production (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 tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
