You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an transparent story, addressing every bit of hardship she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, her song Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and she was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with breast cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an appearance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she says, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
She is familiar with health problems. She believes her attitude toward illness has been so optimistic because she’s used to medical emergencies. They have often coincided with career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with high points for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her 11-year-old self, already making her debut featuring in the stage in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Hey, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
