You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. There she was readying for her first album release in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was found to have a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every ounce of devastation she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with characteristic openness. The initial release, the song No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, was released in late spring and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with her cancer. Four weeks after she disclosed her condition, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and large glasses. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “It seems like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Cornish is sharp-witted, irreverent and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. During performances I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an slot at the ceremony when she noticed an abnormality. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an test, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I was, like, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and tingling in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ That was 28 March, the post-birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ My initial thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal recently and my affected breast now resembles a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The size doesn’t match. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is familiar with health problems. She thinks her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s used to health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ From a young age, it has often paired with high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning featuring in the stage in the production (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 fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and going back into hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has become part of the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the performing arts school. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a year.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
