You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The initial release, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and oversized specs. Picture rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was preparing for an slot at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “Cancer is awful, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. The surgery happened four months ago and my one side now resembles 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 “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is accustomed to medical issues. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
