You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, referencing the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated aggressive cancer.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought 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 hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “The nipple was preserved.”
The next operation is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Frequently they align with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event 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 Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I need a moment. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
