You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d endured since she last recorded music (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while dealing with breast cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, beige footwear and big frames. Think motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “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 picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show in the coming year. “I enjoy humor. On stage I basically roast the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” 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 terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now appears as a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. Cancer ruined that plan.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is no stranger to illness. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, acting as a reminder, or shock, to remind her not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the London theater in the production (she was chosen at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the girl group Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a year.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
