You wouldn’t believe it, Jessie J says. At that moment readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her current love, and at long last the mom to a little one after facing fertility challenges for a decade, riding high. Then in spring she was told she had a breast cancer diagnosis.
The artist, birth name J. Cornish, is renowned for telling it as it is. The record, the provocatively titled album, was intended as an candid account, addressing every bit of hardship she’d endured since she last made an album (a gynecological condition, losing a baby, unsuccessful partnerships, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The initial release, her single No Secrets, was dropped in the spring. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. The illness. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was talking to press about how she was thriving, while at the same time coping with her cancer. Subsequently she shared the news, and in the start of summer she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “What the fuck?” glance. “I put out with a song called No Secrets. I’m doing every interview, and they inquire, ‘Any updates?’ and I’m, like, ‘Well, not much…’” Cornish has just had to call off performances because she’s awaiting cosmetic procedures.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is wearing a beige fake-leather jacket, blue jeans with ornate white designs, cream boots and big frames. Imagine biker chic meets vintage look. “I feel like I’m in the seventies and I should have a man with facial hair.” A biker reference, I say, recalling the film. “I was nicknamed that in school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and direct. She says she has always wanted to try comedy and is planning to attempt her first comedy performance next year. “I like entertaining. When performing I basically roast the crowd.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
She was planning an slot at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I immediately went to get it looked at, had an ultrasound, and they told me, ‘It looks like nothing; your tissue is healthy.’ And I responded, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I rise.’ And they replied, ‘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 bad news she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had persuaded herself it was okay. The way she explains it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had a busy schedule.
“We’re two weeks away from launching this thing after years away and no new music. And she contacted me and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I was, like, ‘A video call, likely minor.’ So I log in expecting it’s all going to be positive, and she informs me, ‘Please take a seat.’ The solemn tone? And she reveals, ‘I regret to inform you but your reports have come back as aggressive cancer.’” What did you say? “I answered, ‘Oh, that’s not ideal, is it?. That’s not fucking great timing.’ The first thing I thought was, ‘I can’t die because my son needs me.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She found the surgery frightening and surreal. “I fear going under. You’re escorted. You know when you have emergency surgery you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a medical attire and my rear exposed. Like a dystopian scene.” But, she notes, she’s been blessed. Without chemo or radio, just the op. “Cancer is awful, but yet Thank fuck I found it early. I underwent removal four months ago and my right breast now resembles a odd shape.” A further beam. “The nipple was preserved.”
The subsequent surgery is for health and appearance. Her chest, she observes, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I thought, why make it worse, I’m already having a hard period. So rude! Ironically I said I’d never get my boobs done because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be flawless. Illness changed that.”
Past Medical Issues
She is accustomed to medical issues. She feels her perspective on the cancer has been so optimistic because she’s used to health crises. Many times they occur alongside career highs, functioning as a wake-up call, or punch in the stomach, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Since childhood, it has consistently accompanied achievements for me; something severe or obscure has impacted my body.”
She takes me back to her youth, already beginning featuring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was cast at the age of 9). That’s when she was told about the heart condition WPW, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and irregular beats. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an drip, and returning to the hospital at night.” She fast-forwards half a dozen years, and young Jessica has entered the female band Soul Deep while enrolled in the Brit School. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in 2020 I had a collision and my larynx moved up and I couldn’t sing for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I need a moment. At just 17? She nods|agrees
