You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment preparing for her comeback record in nearly a decade, blissfully happy with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, her latest release, was meant as an transparent story, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with breast cancer. Four weeks after she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the movie. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She beams. She is quick, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an appearance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist 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 explains it, it was simply too inconvenient to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after eight years without an album and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy recently and my right breast now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she remarks, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s used to medical emergencies. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ From a young age, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning performing in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and teenage Jess has joined the trio Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
