You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J states. At that moment readying for her new album launch in nearly a decade, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for ten years, on top of the world. Suddenly in spring she was told she had cancer in her breast.
The musician, actual name J. Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The record, her latest release, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every moment of pain she’d faced since she last worked on songs (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, suicidal thoughts) with her usual frankness. The first single, No Secrets, was launched in April. 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 Cornish was speaking publicly about how she was thriving, while at the same time living with her cancer. A month later she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every media appearance, and they ask, ‘What’s happening?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s yet to undergo follow-up surgery.
We meet at a studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Picture rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 1970s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the film. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. Jessie is fast-thinking, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always been interested in humor and is hoping to make her standup debut in the coming year. “I love making people laugh. On stage I frequently joke about the crowd.”
Health Struggles and Diagnosis
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she noticed an abnormality. “I promptly visited to get it checked, had an scan, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your tissue is healthy.’ And I insisted, ‘But I can feel it. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they suggested, ‘We should biopsy it?’ The date was March 28, the following my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The physician told her if it was concerning she’d contact on the start of the week. By then she had convinced herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to receive a diagnosis when she had many commitments.
“It was a fortnight prior from releasing the album after a long hiatus and an extended break. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Can you talk at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I jump on the Zoom thinking it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ The solemn tone? And she continues, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your reports have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I hate being put under. They lead you. In urgent cases you go on a gurney, but this time I just walked with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. It felt surreal.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. Without chemo or radio, just the procedure. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my affected breast now appears as a odd shape.” Another grin. “At least the nipple remains.”
The subsequent surgery is both medical and cosmetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. That’s impolite! I reflected, no need to bully me, I’m already having a rough time. So rude! Amusingly I said I’d not undergo augmentation because I’ve got OCD, and I know they’d never be perfect. Illness changed that.”
A History of Health Challenges
She is familiar with health problems. She feels her outlook on her diagnosis has been so optimistic because she’s used to physical challenges. They have often coincided with professional successes, serving as a tap on the shoulder, or blow, to remind her not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel life goes, ‘Enjoying yourself? Hold on.’ Since childhood, it has always gone alongside moments of success for me; something severe or obscure has happened to my health.”
She recalls to her youth, already starting her career featuring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was told about the medical problem a syndrome, which can cause a tachycardia as well as lightheadedness and irregular beats. “I was going in and out of rehearsals on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band 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 ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Wow, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
