You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. At that moment gearing up for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in spring she was told she had breast cancer.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is known for telling it as it is. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The initial release, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then follow-up track, Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and the artist was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I answer, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” the singer has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a light brown synthetic jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is aiming for her initial standup show in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was preparing for an performance at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The physician told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to face illness when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have come back as high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I replied, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She considered the operation scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They lead you. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my backside out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my one side now appears as a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her chest, she notes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so positive because she’s experienced in medical emergencies. They have often coincided with peak moments, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to make her recall not to take anything for granted. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘You having a good time? Hold on.’ From a young age, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She recalls to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was told about the heart condition a syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and going back into hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has become part of the girl group Soul Deep while attending the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in the year 2020 I had a automobile accident and my throat was injured and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
