You can’t imagine it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, riding high. Suddenly in spring she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, actual name J. Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The LP, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last made an album (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. Her diagnosis. Later second single, the upbeat Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Seriously?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is sporting a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and large glasses. Picture biker chic meets vintage look. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She grins. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I basically roast the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d contact on the start of the week. By then Cornish had assured herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your test results have shown aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. During crises you roll down in a bed, but now I just marched with a gown on and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but however Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now resembles a fruit under fabric.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I felt, why make it worse, I’m already having a difficult experience. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is no stranger to illness. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to be complacent. “Truly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her 11-year-old self, already starting her career starring in the stage in a musical (she was selected at the age of 9). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I lost my voice for a twelve months.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
