You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her comeback record in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and finally the parent to a young child after dealing with conception issues for ten years, on top of the world. Then in spring she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The record, the provocatively titled album, was meant as an open book, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, broken romances, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was speaking publicly about how she was living her best life, while all the while living with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every press talk, and they ask, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photo studio in London. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, unfiltered and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the audience.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; your breasts are normal.’ And I responded, ‘Yet I sense it. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I wake up.’ And they suggested, ‘Well, let’s just do a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was bad news she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to face illness when she had many commitments.
“We’re two weeks away 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, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call thinking it’s all going to be fine, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
Men have called me difficult because I’m a strong person who understands who I am
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I fear going under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she adds, she’s been fortunate. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer is awful, but you know what? I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I reflected, why make it worse, I’m already having a rough time. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s familiar with physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has often paired with achievements for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut starring in the London theater in a musical (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and young Jessica has become part of the trio Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was about to put out music in 2020 I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, wait, I need a moment. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
