You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, blissfully happy with her current love, and finally the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was found to have breast cancer.
The musician, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for speaking her mind. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was released in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Then next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while at the same time coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She offers me her best “Seriously?” glance. “I release with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every press talk, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I respond, ‘Erm, yeah, nothing …’” Cornish has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and large glasses. Imagine rocker vibe meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She beams. Cornish is quick, irreverent and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut next year. “I like entertaining. During performances I frequently joke about the fans.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
The artist was planning an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they said, ‘It seems benign; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘Yet I sense it. I have arm pain and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The specialist told her if it was concerning she’d reach out on the Monday. By then she had assured herself it was fine. The way she explains it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I was, like, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘Please take a seat.’ That sympathetic voice? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have come back as malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I said, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. In urgent cases you are wheeled, but now I just marched with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but however I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal recently and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her attitude toward illness has been so positive because she’s used to medical emergencies. Frequently they align with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel fate says, ‘You having a good time? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has consistently accompanied moments of success for me; a major or strange event has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already beginning performing in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as dizziness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead several years, and teenage Jess has entered the female band the group while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
