You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. There she was preparing for her new album launch in eight years, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in spring she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The singer-songwriter, real name J. Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and she was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while at the same time dealing with her cancer. Subsequently she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, beige footwear and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she found a lump. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they said, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after eight years without an album and no new music. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but now I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but however 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.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she observes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already starting her career starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while studying at the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
