You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. At that moment gearing up for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after struggling to conceive for a decade, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last worked on songs (endometriosis, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Later second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time dealing with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every press talk, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s yet to undergo reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think rocker vibe meets vintage look. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” A biker reference, I say, referencing the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. She is quick, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I often tease the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they said, ‘It looks like nothing; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then she had assured herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had a busy schedule.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing after a long hiatus and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I log in thinking it’s all going to be good, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation terrifying and absurd. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, Cornish says, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but however Thank fuck I found it early. The surgery happened a few months back and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “uneven. The size doesn’t match. So inconsiderate! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s experienced in physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning performing 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 WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts 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 automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I lost my voice for a long period.”
Oi, I say, wait, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
