You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J states. At that moment preparing for her first album release in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and finally the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The singer-songwriter, birth name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The record, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was launched in April. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, debuted in May and she was talking to press about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while still secretly living with her cancer. Subsequently she went public, and in July she received surgical treatment.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” glance. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is dressed in a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with elaborate white patches, cream boots and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the seventies and I should have a partner with a mustache.” A biker reference, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Cornish is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always been interested in humor and is planning to attempt her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
The artist was planning an slot at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they were, like, ‘It seems benign; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to get cancer when she had so much on.
“We’re two weeks away from releasing the album after years away and no new music. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be fine, and she says, ‘Please take a seat.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What did you say? “I replied, ‘Well, that’s not great. What awful timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She viewed the procedure scary and bizarre. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but then 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 fortunate. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I underwent removal a few months back and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “asymmetrical. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! It’s funny because I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
Cornish is no stranger to illness. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so positive because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to make her recall not to be complacent. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Take a seat.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; a major or strange event has affected my well-being.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning starring in the London theater in Whistle Down the Wind (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She skips forward several years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a stroke. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a car crash and my larynx moved up and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Wow, I say, slow down, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
