You can’t imagine it, Jessie J says. There she was gearing up for her comeback record in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the mother of a toddler after facing fertility challenges for ten years, feeling invincible. Suddenly in March she was told she had breast cancer.
The artist, real name J. Cornish, is famous for being brutally honest. The LP, her latest release, was intended as an transparent story, tackling every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, miscarriage, failed relationships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with characteristic openness. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The cancer. Later next release, her song Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was living her best life, while all the while coping with the disease. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she received surgical treatment.
She offers me her best “Are you kidding?” expression. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m conducting every media appearance, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We meet at a photography studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, beige footwear and large glasses. Think rocker vibe meets 70s singer aesthetic. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a man with facial hair.” Like the film, I say, thinking of the movie. “That’s what people called me at school!” She grins. Cornish is quick, bold and blunt. 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.”
Personal Battles and News
She was getting ready for an appearance at the ceremony when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. My arm hurts and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘We should biopsy it?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a Friday. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d reach out on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was fine. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to receive a diagnosis when she had so much on.
“Just two weeks before from launching this thing after eight years without an album and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘Unfortunately but your biopsy results have shown malignant cells.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. The timing is terrible.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. They walk you down. During crises you are wheeled, but then I just marched with a medical attire and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she notes, she’s been lucky. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the op. “Cancer sucks, man, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my affected breast now looks like a odd shape.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is therapeutic and aesthetic. Her boobs, she notes, are now “different sizes. The implant is larger than before. How rude! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a hard period. How offensive! Amusingly I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be ideal. Illness changed that.”
Previous Struggles
She is no stranger to illness. She thinks her attitude toward illness has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with medical emergencies. They have often coincided with professional successes, acting as a reminder, or shock, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has often paired with moments of success for me; a serious or unusual issue has impacted my body.”
She reminisces to her youth, already making her debut featuring in the stage in the production (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was found to have the cardiac issue a syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as vertigo and irregular beats. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and 17-year-old Jess has entered the female band the group while studying at the Brit School. “I signed my initial contract, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a automobile accident and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a long period.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. You really had a stroke at 17? She nods|agrees
