You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and finally the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, riding high. Then in March she was found to have cancer in her breast.
The artist, actual name J. Cornish, is famous for speaking her mind. The LP, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, the song No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. The cancer. Later second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and the artist was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with breast cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in early July she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m conducting every interview, and they ask, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I’m, like, ‘Uh, nothing really’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s still waiting for cosmetic procedures.
Our interview takes place at a photo studio in London. She is sporting a beige fake-leather jacket, jeans with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a partner with a mustache.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She smiles. Jessie is quick, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show next year. “I like entertaining. On stage I often tease the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was planning an performance at the ceremony when she found a lump. “I immediately went to get it examined, had an test, and they were, like, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I get up.’ And they suggested, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she describes it, it was just bad timing to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and an extended break. And she [the doctor] texted and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I thought, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I log in believing it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have indicated malignant cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘Well, that’s not great. That’s not fucking great timing.’ My initial thought was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. During crises you go on a gurney, but then I just walked with a hospital gown and my backside out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the procedure. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now looks like a grapefruit under a tight bedsheet.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her chest, she observes, are now “uneven. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I thought, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Cancer ruined that plan.”
Previous Struggles
The singer is no stranger to illness. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s experienced in health crises. Frequently they align with professional successes, functioning as a wake-up call, or shock, to remind her not to take anything for granted. “Honestly, I feel fate says, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her 11-year-old self, already beginning starring in the West End in a musical (she was cast at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the medical problem Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a rapid pulse as well as lightheadedness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has joined the female band Soul Deep while studying at the performing arts school. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a brain incident. Then when I was about to put out music in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, wait, I can’t keep up. At just 17? She nods|agrees
