You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J remarks. There she was readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, deeply enamored with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Then 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 supposed to be an open book, tackling every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (endometriosis, pregnancy loss, failed relationships, emotional abuse, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then follow-up track, the upbeat Living My Best Life, debuted in late spring and Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was enjoying life to the fullest, while at the same time coping with the disease. Four weeks after she shared the news, and in early July she had a mastectomy.
She shoots me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I release with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘What’s happening?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for reconstructive surgery.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with detailed white appliqués, off-white boots and big frames. Imagine motorcycle style meets 70s singer aesthetic. “I feel like I’m in the 70s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “They used to call me that!” She beams. Jessie is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is aiming for her first comedy performance in the coming year. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the Baftas when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it checked, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I was, like, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they replied, ‘We should biopsy it?’ That was 28 March, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then she had persuaded herself it was fine. The way she describes it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from launching this thing 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 join the call believing it’s all going to be positive, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your biopsy results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I said, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a odd shape.” Another grin. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The implant is larger than before. So inconsiderate! I reflected, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. How offensive! It’s funny because I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Past Medical Issues
The singer is accustomed to medical issues. She thinks her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside career highs, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or punch in the stomach, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has affected my well-being.”
She recalls to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as lightheadedness and palpitations. “I rehearsed between visits on an intravenous line, and being readmitted at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band the group while attending the academy. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a car crash and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a long period.”
Oi, I say, slow down, I can’t keep up. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
