You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Then in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is known for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an candid account, addressing every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly dealing with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to call off performances because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
Our interview takes place at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was preparing for an slot at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The specialist told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the Monday. By then Cornish had convinced herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have indicated high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but then I just strolled down with a gown on and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel fate says, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces 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 found to have the cardiac issue Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as vertigo and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an IV drip, and being readmitted at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while attending the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in the year 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
