You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, addressing every moment of pain she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicide) with her usual frankness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. The illness. Later next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with the disease. Four weeks after she went public, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the picture. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance soon. “I like entertaining. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
She was preparing for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now resembles a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she remarks, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with health crises. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while studying at the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
