You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in London. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is quick, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
She was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. The timing is terrible.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my backside 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 op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my one side now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically 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
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group the group while studying at the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
